The effect of child hyperactivity on mothers' expectations for development

Abstract
SummaryMothers of hyperactive (M‐Hyp) and control children (M‐NHyp) estimated the age at which their child and children normally would reach a number of significant developmental milestones. M‐Hyp and M‐NHyp had similar timetables for normal development while their judgements about their own child's development were different. M‐Hyp saw their children as delayed relative to normal development and M‐NHyp saw theirs as advanced. This group difference spanned the social, communicative, cognitive and self‐care domains. The generality of this effect was particularly surprising as the two groups of children had similar IQ scores. A number of explanations for this are discussed, including the possibility that this finding represents an Important generalization of low expectations from the purely social to the communicative/cognitive domains. The implications of this possibility for hyperactive children s development are discussed.