["Risk children": the importance of biological and psychosocial risks for child development in the first two years of life].

In a prospective longitudinal study the development of N = 362 children will be followed over four time points (T1-T4) from birth to school age utilizing a comprehensive battery of instruments. Aims of the study are the description of the developmental course of children born at differing degrees of biological and psychosocial risk, the identification of early predictors of developmental disorders and their compensation, as well as the analysis of the processes and mechanisms underlying differential developmental patterns. The results of waves 1 and 2 show that early development from 3 to 24 months is quite unstable. Depending on the examined domain of development up to 3/4 of the disturbances of infancy have remitted by the later age, whereas nearly a fifth of the hitherto well children developed new disturbances. Both risks have a marked negative effect on development. While biological risks go hand in hand with impaired motor functioning, psychosocial risks adversely affect cognitive and social-emotional competence. However, the relative weight of risk factors changes during the first two years with biological risks becoming less important and psychosocial risk factors gaining influence. Single risk factors identified as being prognostically very unfavourable are very low birth weight and neonatal seizures. Of the psychosocial risks a pattern of unfavourable family characteristics such as low educational level, history of broken home or mental health problems of parents and chronic difficulties is related most strongly to poor outcome.