Measuring Developmental Differences With an Age-of-Attainment Method:

SAGE Open

Warren O. Eaton¹ 

关键词: parent diary;    rate of development;    developmental tempo;    developmental timing;    mother age;    gestational age;    infancy;   

DOI  :  10.1177/2158244014529775

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

The sensitive measurement of variation in rate of attainment is an underutilized but useful indicator of individual differences in development. To assess such individuality, we used longitudinal parental diary checklists of infant attainments to estimate the ages at which ubiquitous developmental milestones like sitting and walking were reached. Parents using this diary checklist have been shown to be valid reporters of milestone attainments. Present analyses show that multiple definitions of milestone onset have high reliability as well. Babies differ considerably in their rates of development, and such individual differences in rates may be predicted from other variables with survival (event history) analysis. Ages of attainment for sustained sitting, crawling, and walking were calculated for 519 infants and predicted using 11 common covariates. Our discovery that babies of younger mothers reach these milestones sooner than those of older mothers reveals the value of an age-of-attainment (AOA) approach. A framework with a SAS program for collecting and analyzing AOA data is presented.

【 授权许可】

CC BY