1. Objectifs

Intentions :
This study explores «children’s participation in activities contributing to their development in these developmental domains, and their parents’ developmental concerns. Specific aims of this study were to: […] describe children’s participation in activities fostering their development, […] document parents’ developmental concerns, [and] explore the influence of family characteristics on children’s activity participation and parental concerns.» (p. 2)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
L’échantillon est composé de 895 parents d’enfants de cinq ans et moins provenant de l’Estrie. Le sexe des participants n’est pas mentionné dans l’article.

Instruments :
Sondage

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Results highlighted the low percentage of families reporting their children’s daily engagement in activities contributing to their development, and the high percentage of families reporting developmental concerns.» (p. 6) «Results revealed that most children engaged in fine motor, physical, and reading activities at least once a week. However, 14.9%–17.0% of parents reported that their children engaged in those activities only a few times a month or less. This is a concern because those activities are known to be important for child development and are often recommended on a daily basis to develop important skills and habits for school […].» (p. 6) Also, the author mentions that considering «the representativeness of [the] sample, the proportion of parents concerned with their children’s [46,8%] development is alarming […]. [The results confirm that the] domains of greatest concern for parents in [the] study were communication skills, affective and behavioural skills, and autonomy.» (p. 7) Moreover, the «results suggest that families with low incomes have more developmental concerns for their children than those with higher incomes. [Also, the] finding that roughly one third of parents who have concerns do not feel the need to consult rehabilitation or health professionals is surprising. [Taken together, these results] described a high rate of developmental concerns in Estrie, Quebec.» (p. 8)