Philadelphia Collaborative Perinatal Project: Economic, Social and Psychological Consequences of Adolescent Childbearing, 1959-1965

This study was concerned with the socioeconomic circumstances of adolescent childbearers and with the intellectual and behavioral status of their children. The study data were part of a large study called the Collaborative Perinatal Project; data collected at four developmental periods were used: (1) socioeconomic information gathered at the mother's registration at ahospital parenatal clinic; (2) neuropsychological information on the infant and an index of material behavior taken when the infant was 8 months old; (3) the results of behavioral and intelligence testing carried out at the child's fourth birthday; and (4) behavioral and intelligence testing of the child and a review and update of the family's social and economic status at the child's seventh birthday. Also used in the study was an additional set of data, collected under separate contract, indicating the presence or absence of eleven categories of common behavioral deviations at the child's fourt h and seventh birthdays. An overwhelming proportion of participants were non-white.