ABSTRACT

The study was a descriptive study which designed to compare the development of children who were living with their parents and who were living with their mothers in prison.

A total of 80 child (25 girl and 15 boy) and mother whom was attended well-child clinic and whom were living with their mother in the prison between age 3 months-4 years old. The “General Information Form” and the Ankara Development Screening Inventory which was developed and made the validity and reliability by Savaşır, Erol ve Sezgin (1994) were used to evaluation. Research data were enrolled by face-to-face interview technique and by asking their children’s mothers. Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney U and chi-square tests were used in the analysis of the data.

The mean age of children was 25.68±14.15 months and 62,5% of were female. The mean scores of children with healthy development who do not stay in prison are higher than the mean scores of the children who stay in the prison,with their mothers in language-cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, social-emotional and general development. While the developmental level of 42.5% of the children who stay at home with their mother were found ≥50%, 40% of the other group’s of the children were found ≥50%. In the prison 35.5% of the children who were staying with their mothers had a general development level of less than 50%, while 15% of the children who were not in prison had a general development level of less than 50%. The gross motor development of children not in prison is significantly higher than the gross motor development of the children who are in the prison (p<0.05). As a result, children’s staying in prison made a significant difference in their level of development [χ2 (df=2, n=80)=63.49, p<0.05].

Considering the effect of the environment on children and the fact that children stay in prison together with their mother, developmental assessments and follow-up of children growing up in different environments and conditions are needed to determine risk situations and to remove adverse environmental conditions. Evaluation and follow-up, especially in early childhood, is of great importance in order to determine the developmental risks, to create an early support programs and to to be able to spend the future life of the child healthy.

It is recommended that prison conditions should be enriched to support children’s development and in education should be given to support the development of the children, and occupation staff to follow the development of children should be appointed in the prisons.

Keywords: Prison, Child, Development, Mother