Winterstein, Nicole2015-09-172015-09-172015-09-17http://hdl.handle.net/10539/18686A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Occupational Therapy Johannesburg, 2015The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of early childhood development programmes (EDPs) by comparing the visual motor integration (VMI) of typically developing children in Grade 00 who did and did not attend commercial EDPs in Johannesburg and whose mothers did or did not return to work. Eighty six typically developing participants selected from higher socio economic status (SES) private pre-schools were included in the study. The participants were tested using The Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor-Integration. The results indicate that the scores in the BTVMI were higher for participants that did not attend EDPs, and therefore attendance at EDPs appears not to facilitate the development of VMI. However, there was a significant difference in the scores in the VMI test between children for participants in relation to mothers’ return to work, with higher scores indicated for children whose mothers did not return to work, indicating that mothers who remained at home to care for the children did facilitate the development of VMI. The scores remain within the normal to above average range for both groups, indicating that there are other factors influencing development of VMI which are not dependent on attending EDPs for most participants as was expected for children from a higher SESenThesis