Child developmental assessment at two-years of age: data from the Pacific Islands Families Study

To describe the developmental profile of Pacific children living in New Zealand at two years of age in personal/social, language, cognitive, fine motor, and gross motor domains, and to examine how sociodemographic, maternal, and cultural factors influence children's development.

A cohort of Pacific infants born during 2000 in Auckland, New Zealand, was followed up at two-years postpartum. Maternal interviews were administered and the developmental status of the child was measured using the Australian Developmental Screening Test.

Maternal child development reports are presented for 1,018 two-year-old children. The majority of children were identified as having no developmental delay. The prevalence of no delay in any of these five domains was 64.8%. For those children (35%) who were identified with possible overall delay the significant risk factors were child ethnicity, low birth weight, being breastfed for less than six weeks, and single parenthood.

The powerful associations of these factors and developmental outcome suggest that interventions need to have the flexibility to address such issues within individual Pacific families and communities.