Screening and assessment for developmental and learning delays among young school-age children in Tanzania
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Date
1989
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
Developmental screening and assessment of pre-school and school children in Tanzania should be an integral part of childhood services. Research on early childhood education and stimulation in the family has indicated that children’s development and learning can be enhanced and handicapping conditions can be prevented. One area of great concern has been the importance of the family environment in early childhood development and learning, especially the role played by various family processes and interactions. The present study attempted to explore the developmental characteristics of young school-age children and the characteristics of their home environment in Tanzania. The intention was to identify children’s developmental strengths and symptoms of possible developmental problems. The home environment was analyzed for factors enhancing or inhibiting children’s development and learning. The five questions which guided the study sought to identify children’s current developmental and functional characteristics, family provisions supporting children’s development, whether the MPI and the JOME inventories differentiated children’s developmental functioning, and the characteristics of the home environment, whether the MPI and HOME were ecologically appropriate for screening and assessing children in Tanzania, and the extent to which the family helped children to develop school related skills. To address this problem, a cross-sectional design was employed to study 100 five and six year old children with mean ages of 59.2 months and 73.2 months, respectively, from five city locations in Dar Es Salaam. Children’s parents (100) provided information on (Children’s) developmental characteristics and functioning as represented in the MPI. The HOME was administered to parents to explore the characteristics of the home environment. Children’s knowledge of language, quantitative reasoning and memory functioning was assessed with selected items from the Binet Form IV version for pre-school children. Three scores were obtained from each child and two inventory-based scores were obtained from parents. Interviews were conducted on 20 parents to validate the appropriateness of the items on the inventories. The independent variables in the study were centre, sex and age. The dependent variables included the eleven developmental and problem subscales of the MPI and the eight HOME subscales, and the three cognitive tests were analyzed for means, standard deviations and tested for statistical significance. Graphic presentation was employed for MPI results to provide visual contrast of children’s developmental characteristics. Results from the MPI supported by parent interviews indicated that the five and six year old children were developmentally normal and functioning efficiently in the family. Results from the interviews revealed that parents understood their children’s developmental abilities and could detect developmental and behaviour problems. The family environment provided children with variety of stimulation, but some constraints limited various aspects of environmental stimulation thus affecting children’s acquisition of some skills adversely. The results further indicated that most items on the MPI and a few items on the HOME were ecologically appropriate, however they required insight into cultural interpretations of developmental characteristics and behaviour. It was suggested that further research with the inventories is required before ecological and construct validity could be established.
Description
Avalable in print form
Keywords
Educational, Preschool, Tanzania
Citation
Mbise, A.S (1989) Screening and assessment for developmental and learning delays among young school-age children in Tanzania,PhD dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam. Available at (http://41.86.178.3/internetserver3.1.2/detail.aspx?parentpriref=)