Family and Intellectual Development of Children

The family has a profound impact on the development of children. This pilot study aimed at investigating family environment and intelligence of children. Sample consisted of 20 pre-school children and their mothers (half belonged to above poverty line and half from below poverty line families). Home inventory for families of preschoolers (Caldwell and Bradley, 2001) and parent involvement scale (Chopra and Sahoo, 2005) were used to judge the environmental conditions of children in their home. Intellectual development of children was assessed by Standford Binet Intelligence Hindi adaptation Scale (Kulshreshtha, 1971). The results revealed that children belonged to privileged families had got significantly better family environment as compare to underprivileged children. Home environment and parent involvement were found to be positively and significantly correlated with intellectual development of these children.