Background/Purpose Research provides a rather convincing case that the combination of environmental and biological risk factors provides a double threat to child development. The present study addressed this notion by examining the relation between prenatal and birth biological factors, characteristics of the home environment, and level of motor behavior in infants aged newborn to 18 months.
Method Five hundred and sixty-one (561) infants, representing six age groups at 3-month intervals, were assessed for prenatal and birth biological factors, performance on the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS), and for home characteristics using the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development – Infant Scale (AHEMD – IS). AHEMD-IS and AIMS administration was conducted with a 2-week period for each participant.
Analysis/Results AIMS results indicated that 37 percent demonstrated either delay or suspicious motor behavior. Biological factors were most influential on motor behavior during the first 12 months; namely: low birth weight, prematurity and duration of ICU hospitalization. Regarding characteristics of the home, correlation analyses indicated that parent's education, family income, and how long the child was carried in the arms of a parent, were associated with level of motor development. Another significant finding of this study was that motor affordances in the home were associated with motor development with all age groups; fine- and gross-motor toy scores provided moderate to strong positive correlations with AIMS scores.
Conclusions Considered together, these results suggest that for typically developing infants and those with biological risk factors, the home environment is a significant influence in motor development.
See more of: Research Consortium