Time trends of child development in a Jerusalem community

The study of the Development Quotient (DQ-according to the Brunet-Lezine test) of two-year-olds living in a geographically defined area in Western Jerusalem was carried out for the birth cohorts of 1971 to 1989 (n = 4314). An 'Early Stimulation' programme was implemented from 1975 through the Mother and Child Health Clinic. The stimulation programme provided mothers with skills to enhance the development of their children through social interaction, play and verbal stimulation from birth to two years of age. The mean DQ at 2 years old increased significantly from 104.6 (SD = 9.8) for the 1972 cohort to 108.9 (SD = 9.1) for those born in 1989. Coordination and posture subscores followed the trends of the total DQ while the trends in language development were less marked. There is indication that children whose mothers had 9-11 years of schooling benefited more than other children. Better achievement on the developmental test as expressed in the mean DQ was probably related to changing socio-demographic characteristics of the population, and the implementation of the 'Early Stimulation' programme. The widening gap of the DQ after an initial decrease among children whose mothers had < or = 8 years of schooling and those in higher educational groups during the 80s may have been caused by the fact that the latter are a very disadvantaged group of families compared with the rest of the population.