Developmental Delays among Infants and Young Children in Addis Ababa: Screening, Risk Factors and Intervention (Doctoral Dissertation)
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Date
2014-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Several studies emphasized the importance of developmental and readiness testing as that would
enable early identification of those who need support or further assessment. Besides, researches
showed that children who were at risk or who experienced delayed development when passed
through early intervention they manifested positive gains in development. In this connection, this
study was conducted with three objectives in mind. The first one was screening for
developmental delays among infants and young children of Addis Ababa; the second one was
identifying risk factors associated with global developmental delay; and the third objective was
conducting intervention with some developmentally delayed infants and children. To achieve
these objectives descriptive survey and quasi-experimental designs were implemented. A sample
of 1,062 infants and young children were randomly selected from Bole, Addis Ketema and Kolfe
sub-cities. Infants and young children’s development was assessed by using Ages and Stages
Questionnaire – Amharic version. Besides, the characteristics of home environment, maternal
and child conditions were gathered with the questionnaire set for this purpose. Following
screening for developmental delays, three months intervention was carried out in two randomly
selected sites. A total of 29 participants were involved in the treatment group and 19 participants
did take part in comparison group. Data on children’s developmental status were collected
before and after intervention. The data collected were analyzed through logistic regression
analysis, MANOVA, t-test, frequencies and percentages. The results of the investigation revealed
that 28.13% of infants and young children involved in this research revealed global
developmental delay and more delayed development was observed in fine motor domain as
30.53% of children showed delayed development in this domain. From the risk factors evaluated
in this research maternal age, low birth weight, physical punishment, unavailability of playing
materials, exposure to illness and family size were found to be significantly associated with
global developmental delay. However, when predictor variables entered the statistical model the
proportion of variance explained by the variables examined was very small in most cases and the
largest one was 19.9% which was the explained variance on communication scores for infants of
18 months age interval. The results of the intervention study showed that infants and young
children in comparison group performed better than those in the treatment group. Based on the
findings obtained some recommendations are made
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Keywords
Risk factors and intervention