Relations between mothers' expectations and the performance of their infants who have developmental handicaps.

Relations between mothers' expectations and the performance of their infants with a disability on specific developmental tasks were explored. These mothers predicted their child's performance on developmental measures with accuracy levels comparable to those of parents of preschool children without disabilities. Children whose mothers were initially the most accurate in their estimations tended to show fewer gains in their statistically adjusted Bayley Mental Development Index scores over the course of the study. Mother's initial accuracy scores were found to account for substantial additional portions of the variance in the children's Bayley performances 14 and 28 weeks later.