A Longitudinal Study On The Children Of The Island Of Kauai ( The Garden Island )

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Werner conducted a longitudinal study on the children of the island of Kauai (the garden island) in Hawaii. This study consisted of two objectives: to seek the long term effects of prenatal or perinatal stress and record the early nurturing adversities effects on a child’s physical, cognitive and psychosocial development. She used a sample of 698 infants out of 1963 live births to carry out this study. The study looked at these infants at the ages of one, two, 10, 18, 31 and 32. She enlisted members of the community to take a census of the women around the garden from 12 years or older to find out the amount of pregnant women ,and enlist the non pregnant to send word when the got pregnant. She got information regarding the mothers’ postpartum period when the children were at the age one and 10 years from nurses and social workers. Nurses were in charge of observing the women during each trimester of the pregnancy if any difficulty was encountered, such as physical or emotional stress. Physicians were controlled any difficulty encountered during the prenatal stage, labour, delivery and neonatal stage. She enlisted the paediatricians and psychologists to access the children’s’ physical, intellectual and social developmental whilst documenting if any of the children had disabilities or behavioural problems. She and her colleagues also gave several tests such as aptitude, personality, etc. at elementary and high school grades. Lastly, they interviewed the children at ages 18, 31 and 32 to get their view on life. In 1955, some of the children died as a result of exposure to prenatal or perinatal stress between birth and age two. 116 children were diagnosed with physical or mental difficulties at age two and 142 children had gotten le... ... middle of paper ... ...r lives were like. They found that 86% of the resilient children seemed to doing well as adults and compared with non-vulnerable children had a higher rate of reporting to be happy. However, they did record high amount of health problems such as dizziness, back problems for men and pregnancy, childbirth for women. In addition, other children from the vulnerable group reported significantly better results compared to their teenage selves e.g. going back to school, getting a job etc. the study proves to show that children can grow up to be competent members of the society even if born into impoverished environment and under stressful situations as long as there is a balance between the environment, stress and support. she suggest early intervention programs and nurturing environments for children in vulnerable conditions to improve the child’s development in future.

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