Hubungan Verbal Abuse Terhadap Perkembangan Kognitif Anak Usia Prasekolah di Kelurahan Reban Kabupaten Batang

Abstract

Department of Nursing Faculty of Medicine Diponegoro University Semarang, June 2017 ABSTRACT Vera Dinda Wijayanti The Relationship between Verbal Abuse and Cognitive Development of Preschool-Aged Children in Reban Urban Village, Batang Regency xvi + 61 pages + 11 tables + 2 figures + 15 appendixes There are some factors which influence a child’s optimal cognitive development; one of which is the mother’s behaviors toward children. Results of a preliminary study involving 8 mothers with preschool-aged children revealed that 6 mothers often used verbal abuse and 3 other mothers occasionally used verbal abuse. Five out of 8 children were found to have inappropriate cognitive development, while the remaining 3 showed an appropriate cognitive development. Some mothers still do not know the effects of verbal abuse on children when it is frequently used. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between verbal abuse and cognitive development of preschool-aged children in Reban urban-village, Batang regency. The present study employed a quantitative design of descriptive correlation with a cross sectional approach. A proportional random sampling was used to recruit the samples of 139 respondents. The data were collected by using a questionnaire about the impact of verbal abuse behaviors on cognitive development, which was adopted from previous studies. The results indicated that 75.5% of mothers often used verbal abuse and 57.6% of children showed a doubtful cognitive development. Furthermore, 12.2% of children had a deviant cognitive development. The Spearman rho correlation test obtained a p-value of 0.001 (p <0.05) which indicated that there was a relationship between verbal abuse and cognitive development of preschool-aged children in Reban urban-village, Batang regency. Based on the findings, it is suggested that mothers should not yell or abusively speak to their children since it will affect the life of the children in the future. Keywords: verbal abuse, child’s cognitive development References: 81 (2006-2017)