Development delay in children under 6 years old is prevalent not only in both developed and developing countries. It is alarming that the number of delayed children is increasing. It is obliging to find out the family factors that possibly affect developmental delays in children six years old and younger. The objectives of the study were the following: (1) Describe the characteristics of families of children with developmental delays. (2) Determine the factors that significantly relate with developmental delays when comparing families of children, with delays and without delays.

The sample was composed of 52 delayed children and their families, and 52 normal children and their families who were purposively chosen. The data was collected from March to May 2011 with the approval of the Saint Louis University Research Ethics Committee. The Metro Manila Developmental Screening Test was used  to test child development. The Parent Behavior Checklist was used to assess  parenting behavior of mothers. A questionnaire was used to collect family and child factors.

The results of analysis revealed that higher frequencies of delays occurred in children one (23.08%) and three (23.08%) years of age; first born or only child (36.54%), and in households with three children or less (32.69%). Families of delayed children are of low socio-economic status, whose mother predominantly scored low in all categories of parenting. It was also found out that more frequencies  of delays occurred in the fine motor adaptive sector (86.54%), followed by the language (69.23%), gross motor (38.46%) and personal-social (32.69%) sectors respectively.

Results of the chi square test revealed that expectation parenting behavior is significantly associated to developmental delay in the gross-motor sector (p 0.005) in children under six years of age. Developmental delays in the gross motor sector in the three to less than six-year-olds are significantly associated with father's occupation (p 0.009) and expectation parenting behavior (p 0.022).

Analysis of factors associated with developmental delays when comparing delayed and normal children revealed that family factors are not significantly associated with developmental delays. A sub-analysis of age groups however revealed that mother's occupation and developmental delays are significantly associated in the three to less that six-year-old age group (p 0.026).

It is concluded that children with developmental delays belong to families with disadvantaged socioeconomic status whose mothers scored low in all subscales of parenting behaviors; and family characteristics, parenting behaviors of the mother and child characteristics are not significantly related to developmental delays  in children under six years old. Therefore, health workers should be more vigilant in identifying children with developmental delays regardless of family characteristics.