DEVELOPMENTAL FEATURES OF PRESENT-DAY CHILDREN IN JAPAN

Abstract

Objectives: We tried to investigate the changes in developmental features of children between present-day and 20 years ago in Kansai district of Japan. Methods: We used the materials, which we collected for standardization of testing procedure (Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development) in 1983 and 2001. The data were individual assessments for 811 children in 1983 and 1115 children in 2001, aged 1–6 years old. The test consists of the postural-motor areas of 8 items, cognitive-adaptive areas of 54 items and language-social areas of 37 items. To analyze the change, we compared the '50%-passing ages' of each item between the data of 1983 and 2001. The '50%-passing ages' are conducted through data and mean the provable age (months) which 50% of children would satisfy requirements. Results: Comparing the 50%-passing ages of each item, the 2001 result came with more items than the 1983 result, in which the passing ages have delayed. It means that development of children has become slow. Most of delayed items belong to the cognitive-adaptive areas and the language-social areas. In many items of drawing pictures, the 50%-passing ages delayed especially; 'Copying square', 'Copying triangle' and 'Copying diamond' delayed about 6 months, 8 months and 11 months respectively. A few item showed acceleration, 'Naming 4 colors' advanced about 9 months. Conclusions: Before this investigation we thought that the developmental tendency of present-day children has been accelerating, because of the progress of early-age education. But these results indicate that the developmental tendency has delayed recently. Further more study is needed from now on.