Effect of gender and parental educational level on Denver Developmental Screening Test-II in healthy children aged 6 months to 6 years

INTRODUCTION: The present study aimed to evaluate healthy children using the Denver Developmental Screening Test-II (DDST-II) and to investigate the relationship between developmental outcomes, gender, and parents’ educational level.
METHODS: Children aged between 6 months and 6 years who had no underlying disease were evaluated using the DDST-II. The test results and demographical data were recorded.
RESULTS: Among the 114 enrolled children, 100 cases (46 girls and 54 boys) were evaluated using the DDST-II. According to the results, 86% of the study population had normal development and 14% had abnormal development. When we compared children in terms of gender, there was no significant difference between the DDST-II test results and the success rates in personal-social (PS), fine motor, gross motor, and language development observed (p>0.05). However, a significant relationship was detected between DDST-II success rates and maternal education level (p=0.001). The language development of the children of mothers with a higher education level was also significantly better (p=0.021). The low educational level of the fathers was found to be related to the children’s abnormal developmental findings (p=0.005).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The maternal educational level directly determines the success rates of the DDST-II and the language skills of their children. Paternal educational level affects children with abnormal developmental findings. No gender-related differences were found in PS, fine motor, gross motor, and language areas of DDST-II.