The Effect of an Environment Motor Affordance Intervention on Social Development of Toddlers

Children's development is shaped based on a combination of environmental, organism, physiological and genetic factors. Recent researches on the development of children and toddlers convincingly show that the best growth level happens in a motivating environment and a powerful support. This study aimed at evaluating the effect of an environment affordance intervention on social development of toddlers aged between 24 and 42 months. The sample included 46 healthy toddlers aged between 24 and 42 months in Ghoochan city who were randomly selected by multi-stage cluster sampling methods. The subjects were assigned to three groups: experimental (n=16), kindergarten (n=15) and control (n=15). The experimental group was placed in an afforded environment for 36 sessions (3 months). To examine toddlers' home environment and afforded environment of experimental group, the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development– (AHEMD) was used for motor development and Vineland Scale was applied for social development. Data were analyzed using univariate analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The findings showed no significant differences in social development among the groups (P=0.963). The results indicated that environment affordances had no effects on toddlers' social development in the experimental group. Therefore, the present study concluded that environment affordance did not influence toddlers' social development aged between 24 and 42 months.