Abstract/Results: | ABSTRACT:
The present study holds as major purpose to assess the impact of caregivers? child temperament perception and of child-caregiver interaction quality on institutionalized children?s physical growth and mental development. The sample was composed by forty-seven children taken in Temporary Care Centers, ages ranging from 0 to 30 months old. Four assessment moments took place: the first moment coincided with the children?s age of admission into the institution and the next moments occurred every three months. Children?s physical growth (Direção Geral de Saúde, 2002) and mental development (Bayley, 2006) were evaluated on every moment and video recordings of a structured interaction task (Baptista, Marques, Silva, Soares & Lyons-Ruth, 2008) were obtained on the institution for later assessment of caregivers´ sensibility (Ainsworth, Bell & Stayton, 1974). Infant Characteristics Questionnarie (ICQ; Pires, 1994, 1997; Martins, 2007; Carneiro et al., 2010) was used in order to assess caregivers´ child temperament perception and institutional context quality was also evaluated on all assessment moments (Silva et al., 2010). Results indicated that physical growth and mental development levels were generally below expected for children?s age. However, throughout the 9 month period, children presented significant increases on weight and head circumference, yet not on height or mental development measures. On the third assessment moment, children perceived as holding a less difficult temperament presented a significantly higher mental development when compared to children perceived has holding a more difficult temperament. No relationship was found, on every assessment moment, between caregivers´ sensibility and children´s physical growth and mental development. In what concerns institutional context quality, evaluated dimensions were associated with children´s cognitive, linguistic and motor performance. Results are discussed on the basis of the impact of care depriving institutional contexts on child´s development.
|