New research from the University of Rochester reveals that almost one in three U.S. parents has surprisingly low-level knowledge of child development, including basic concepts about what their children should know or how they should act.

The results of the research are the more surprising as “there are numerous parenting books telling people what to expect when they’re pregnant,” Dr. Heather Paradis of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, lead author of the study, said, according to Reuters.

“But once a baby is born, an astonishing number of parents are not only unsure of what to anticipate as their child develops, but are also uncertain of when, how or how much they are to help their babies reach various milestones, such as talking, grabbing, discerning right from wrong, or even potty-training,” she added.

Dr. Paradis and her colleagues used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study’s Birth Cohort, a survey of parents of more than 10,000 9-month-old babies (98.6 percent were mothers).

The parents had to answer 11 questions designed to distinguish informed parents from less-informed parents. The survey asked questions such as, "Should a 1-year-old child be able to tell between right from wrong?" and "Should a 1-year-old child be ready to begin toilet-training?"

The parents scoring 4 or fewer correct answers were considered to have low- level knowledge of typical infant development.

The researchers further compared these answers with a videotaped analysis of the same families teaching their child a new task, (such as playing scrabble) and with these parents’ confessions on how often they engaged their children in enrichment activities such as reading books, telling stories, or singing songs.

The research shows that 31.2 percent of U.S. parents know very little about the pace of a typical infants’ development, and this was strongly correlated with lower parental education level and income.

"The fact that almost a third of parents could only answer four out of eleven questions correctly was very surprising to us," Dr. Paradis said.

She also added that this lack of knowledge had a negative impact on the parent-child relationship. “Parents who had less knowledge had less quality interaction with their kids.”

One way to solve this problem is to urge pediatricians to educate parents during well-baby visits.

“My hope for pediatricians is that we’re able to come up with some novel approaches to educating parents in the office setting,” Dr. Paradis said.

Dr. Paradis presented her findings Sunday at the Pediatric Academic Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.