Factors affecting young children's mental development and their significance in intervention

Factors affecting their developmental quotients (DQ) in 48 normal young children, who were involved in regular development assessments at child health care outpatient visits and whose parents received child-rearing guidance at Chaoyangmen Subdistrict of Dongcheng District, Beijing, and 43 controls aged 36 months were analyzed. Factors, such as their parents' receiving child-rearing guidance, paternal education, maternal education, paternal occupation, type of nursery schools, home environment quality score (HEQS) at 24 and 36 months of age, and mothers' knowledge of child-rearing were associated with children's DQ at their age of 36 months, with statistical significance at a level of 0.05 in univariate analysis. With multiple regression analysis, HEQS at the age of 36 months, family size at the age of 24 months, paternal education, children's sex, and mothers' age had influences on DQ at age of 36 months with statistical significance, and the degree of correlation of HEQS with DQ at 36 months was much higher than that of other factors, and it suggested that HEQS was an important link in child developmental intervention.