The Effect Of Parents 'Perception, Attitudes And Cognitive Development On Early Childhood During Nutrition

Human health and development begins with the health and nutrition by one’s the mother before birth and continues throughout his/her life, in addition the process between birth and the age of compulsory primary education is called "Pre-School Education Period". ,It is possible to mention three main components that affect early childhood development. These are nutrition, environment and education. As early childhood period means 0-8 years of age, early childhood development covers all the physical, mental and social developments in children's early lives in addition to all necessary interventions in nutrition, education, care, health, mental development and social communication that may affect the development. ,In this study, which is about supporting early childhood development (ECD), the importance of nutrition in the development of children will be explained and how the knowledge levels, attitudes and beliefs of families affect children’s development will be discussed. ,The data have been obtained from teachers and parents of 107 children attending preschool educational institutions in Selçuklu, Meram and Yunak districts of Konya during 2014-2015 education year. Moreover, the required permission documents related to the applications that were implemented in the schools have been taken from Konya Provincial Directorate of National Education. ,“Personal Information Form”, “Cognitive Skills Assessment Scale” (filled by the preschool teacher), “Assessment Scale of Parental Nutrition Information” and “Scale of Parents' Attitudes and Behaviors on Children” (filled by the mothers of children aged 4-6 attending preschool institutions) have been used in this study. ,Finally, SPSS 15 packet program has been used in the statistical analysis of this study providing with frequency and descriptive statistics, Oneway analysis of variance (ANOVA), and two independent sample T-tests.