Resumen de Parents knowledge about the development of children aged 2 to 6 years old.

Maria da Luz Vale Dias, Luiza Nobre-Lima

• Based on the assumption that parental knowledge about child development influences the way parents understand the behavior of their children, parenting actions and child development, this study aimed to: 1) analyze what parents know about the development of children aged between 2 and 6 years old and the security they have on this knowledge; 2) explore the variability of this knowledge according to characteristics such as age, sex, parents’ level of education and number of children; 3) know if parental knowledge about child development predicts pleasure in parenting. For the purpose, it was used a socio-demographic questionnaire and the Portuguese versions of the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory-P [KIDI-P] (MacPhee, 1996; Portuguese adaptation by Nobre-Lima, Vale-Dias, Mendes, Mónico, & MacPhee, 2014) and of the Pleasure in Parenting Scale [PPS] (Fagot, 1995; Portuguese adaptation: Taborda, Vale-Dias, Aguiar, & Morais, 2011). KIDI-P is a one-dimensional scale of 58 items which are scored as correct, incorrect or not sure. Three summary scores can be calculated: a t t e m p t e d , a c c u r a c y and a t o t al. The former is related to confidence in ones knowledge, the second represents exposure to solid, normative information about infants and the last reflects the percentage of correct answers out of all items on the KIDI-P . PPS is a 10 items unidimensional scale evaluating the gratification in parenting.The sample has around 500 parents, on average on their thirties, both sexes, and not couples. Results show that parental knowledge about child development predicts pleasure in parenting. Results also point to some interesting differences in the KIDI-P summary scores between mothers and fathers and according to the number of children and educational background, that can be suggestive of the importance of addressing the sources of knowledge about developmental information and its rigorous disclosure when working with parents, for example in educational or pediatric contexts.