Parents' developmental expectations and child characteristics: longitudinal study of children with developmental delays and their families.

The relation between child characteristics and parents' developmental expectations for their children with developmental delays at ages 3, 7, and 11 was examined. Parents' developmental expectations were moderately stable over time, tending to decline as children matured. As hypothesized, parents' developmental expectations were associated with child characteristics at age 3 and became increasingly correlated with child characteristics over time. Results of regression analyses generally support the hypothesis that early child characteristics, but not early parent expectations, are the best predictors of parents' developmental expectations and child outcomes at child age 11. The one exception was the prediction of children's daily living competence by a combination of early parent expectations and children's Gesell DQ scores.