Does quality of child care affect child outcomes at age 4 1/2?

Research reveals associations between child-care quality and child outcomes. But are these associations causal? Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care, a longitudinal study of children from birth to age 4 1/2, were used to explore 5 propositions that would support a causal argument. Three propositions received support, principally in the cognitive domain: (a) Associations between quality and outcomes remained even with child and family factors controlled; (b) associations between care and outcomes were domain specific; and (c) outcomes were predicted by quality of earlier care with concurrent care controlled. The 4th proposition, that associations between quality and outcomes would be significant with earlier abilities controlled, received limited support. There was no support for the 5th proposition, that quality and outcomes would exhibit dose-response relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child care and mother–child interaction in the first three years of life.

Relations between nonmaternal child care and ratings of maternal sensitivity and child positive engagement during mother–child interaction at 6, 15, 24, and 36 months were examined for 1,274 mothers and their children participating in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development(NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. In longitudinal analyses that controlled for selection, child, and family predictors, child care was a small but significant predictor of maternal sensitivity and child engagement. For the whole sample, including families who did and did not use child care, more hours of child care predicted less maternal sensitivity and less positive child engagement. For children who were observed in child care, higher quality child care predicted greater maternal sensitivity, and more child-care hours predicted less child engagement. The effects of child care on mother–child interaction were much smaller in the analytical models than the effects of maternal education but were similar in size to the effects of maternal depression and child difficult temperament. Patterns of association with child care did not differ significantly across ages of assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child care effects in context: Quality, stability, and multiplicity in nonmaternal child care arrangements during the first 15 months of life.

Main and interactive effects of child care quality, stability, and multiplicity on infants' attachment security, language comprehension, language production, and cognitive development at 15 months were examined using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. Thirty-nine percent of the infants in this sample experienced arrangement change, and 46% experienced multiple concurrent arrangements during the first 15 months. As in previous studies, concurrent quality, average quality, and quality slope significantly predicted cognitive and language development. There was some evidence that certain forms of unstable child care--including nonfamilial change, familial to nonfamilial change, and within-home to out-of-home change--were associated with poorer language development. Multiple child care arrangements involving family members positively predicted language comprehension; multiple care involving a mix of family and nonrelative caregivers negatively predicted language comprehension. Interactions among variables exhibited "effects in context." That is, under conditions of low or moderate quality in the primary care arrangement, the use of fewer multiple arrangements was associated with higher language scores; under conditions of high primary care quality, the use of more multiple arrangements was associated with higher language scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child's play with adults, toys, and peers: An examination of family and child-care influences.

Toddler-age children's (11 to 30 months old) play with care-giving adults and with toys and peers was observed and rated in family day-care homes. Fifty-five children, their mothers, and family day-care home providers participated in this study. The quality of the family day-care homes was assessed with the Harms and Clifford Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) and by measures of ratio and group size. Information on family stress, social support, child-rearing attitudes, and maternal role satisfaction was reported by mothers. More nurturing and supported families were associated with higher quality child care, whereas more restrictive and stressed families were associated with lower quality child care. More restrictive and stressed families were associated with more changes in child-care arrangements. Greater numbers of child-care changes also were associated with lower levels of competent play with objects and peers. When quality of care was controlled, both more nurturing and supported families and less restrictive and stressed families were associated with higher levels of competent play with adult caregivers, peers, and objects. When family characteristics were controlled, higher quality child care was associated with more competent play with adult caregivers and with peers and objects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between family predictors and child outcomes: Are they weaker for children in child care?

Studies suggesting that family factors predict developmental outcomes more strongly for children reared principally by their parents than those with extensive early child-care experience stimulated the examination of the differential prediction of child outcomes using a subsample of families participating in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. A variety of factors were used to predict development of children who averaged 30 hr of nonparental care per week for each month of their lives and for those who never experienced more than 10 hr of care per week by someone other than their mothers. Multivariate analyses provided no evidence that family factors predicted outcomes differentially for these 2 groups, though exploratory analyses revealed several instances of differential prediction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

American child care today.

Child care has 2 purposes: mothers' employment and children's development. These are conflicting goals, because the first focuses on the quantity and affordability of child care whereas the second favors expensive quality services. Affordable child care fosters maternal employment and gender equality. With welfare reform demanding more child-care places to move mothers from welfare to work, the pressure for larger quantities of child care is great. Demanding regulations raise the quality of care and give more assurance of children's well-being, but they also increase the cost. More expensive regulations price more working parents out of licensed care and force them to use unregulated home care. Widely varying qualities of child care have been shown to have only small effects on children's current development and no demonstrated long-term impact, except on disadvantaged children, whose homes put them at developmental risk. Parents have far greater impact on their children's development through both the genes and environments they provide. Thus, greater quantities of affordable, regulated child care may be possible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of social competence in Swedish preschoolers.

One hundred forty firstborn Swedish children, averaging 16 months of age initially, participated in the study. All were on the waiting lists for child-care centers. Parents were interviewed about demographic variables, social support, and child temperament, the quality of home care was assessed, and children were observed interacting at home with familiar peers. Fifty-three children were then admitted to center day care, 33 were offered places in family day-care facilities, and 54 remained at home with their parents. Shortly after enrollment and again 1 year later, the quality of alternative care was assessed. In follow-up assessments 1 year after the initial interviews and observations, peer social skills, sociability with strange adults, and child personality (as rated by parents and care providers) were assessed. Type and quality of nonfamilial child care had no significant effect on these aspects of child development. The major determinants of personality maturity were background variables: High family socioeconomic status, high quality of home care, and easy temperament facilitated personality maturity. Availability of support from maternal grandparents had a smaller but significant effect. Prior social skills and age were the best predictors of peer social skills evidenced on the posttest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between early child care and schooling.

The purpose of this article is to examine relations between aspects of early child care (age entered, full- or part-time structure, and number of child-care arrangements and their quality) and school adjustment. The early child-care experiences of 87 children who entered a laboratory elementary school at 3 years, 9 months of age were documented, and their first-grade adjustment was assessed 3 years after school entrance. Although single-parent families and families in which the mother was employed used more child care and enrolled their children at earlier ages, maternal education was more closely associated with children's school adjustment than was maternal employment or marital status. After family characteristics were accounted for, academic progress, school skills, and few behavioral problems were predicted by high-quality, stable child care. The structure of the early child care (full- or part-time) was not associated with school adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child-care and family predictors of preschool attachment and stability from infancy.

This study used multinomial logistic regression to examine relationships between child-care experience (in the context of overall family functioning) and preschool attachment. Attachment behavior was assessed at 36 months with the Strange Situation, and A, B, C, and D attachment classifications were assigned using the MacArthur coding system. Maternal sensitivity was the strongest predictor of preschool attachment classification. With respect to child-care effects, as at 15 months, no child-care factors (quantity, quality, or type) predicted, in and of themselves, attachment security at 36 months. However, 1 of 3 interactions involving child care that were detected at 15 months reemerged at 36 months: When maternal sensitivity was low, more hours per week in care somewhat increased the risk of the insecure-ambivalent (C) classification. There was significant but modest stability of attachment classifications from 15 to 36 months, especially for children with A and C classifications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child-care quality and children's social development.

This study examined the influence on children's social development of variation in the quality of their child-care environments. The sample consisted of 166 children attending representative child-care centers that varied widely in quality. Possible relations associated with age, child-care experience, and family background were controlled using hierarchical multiple regression. Both global estimates of child-care quality and specific program features, such as director experience, ratios, and verbal interactions, were obtained from observational measures and staff questionnaires. Measures of social development were derived from parent and caregiver ratings of the children. Of greatest importance is the finding that overall quality, caregiver–child verbal interactions, and director experience were each highly predictive of the children's social development in child care. Family background measures were also significantly predictive of several of the social outcomes, whereas child-care experience showed few significant effects. The implications for social policies and future research in child care are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Class climate moderates peer relations and emotional adjustment in children with an early history of anxious solitude: A child × environment model.

Classroom emotional climate was hypothesized to moderate psychosocial adjustment in 1st grade for children with an early childhood history of anxious solitude. Participants were 1,364 children in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and their mothers, child-care providers, and teachers. As anticipated, children with an early childhood history of anxious solitude were more rejected, poorly accepted (boys), and victimized (girls) by peers and demonstrated more depressive symptoms (girls) in 1st-grade classrooms with negative observed emotional climate. Results support a Child × Environment model of children's social and emotional adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reply to comments on the child-care debate.

Responds to comments by W. B. Johnson and D. Hayes (see record 1993-41125-001), J. E. Maddux (see record 1993-41129-001), K. McCarthey et al (see record 1993-41130-001), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Network (see record 1993-41132-001), and N. Shpancer (see record 1993-41138-001) on L. B. Silverstein's (see record 1992-05293-001) original article on child care and maternal employment, noting that the comments go a long way toward expanding the child-care debate, if not transforming it. Silverstein focuses on the role of psychology in policymaking and the responsibility of government in the lives of individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing a series of causal propositions relating time in child care to children’s externalizing behavior.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 46(2) of Developmental Psychology (see record 2010-03975-013). On the first page of the article “Testing a Series of Causal Propositions Relating Time in Child Care to Children’s Externalizing Behavior,” by Kathleen McCartney, Margaret Burchinal, Alison Clarke- Stewart, Kristen L. Bub, Margaret T. Owen, Jay Belsky, and the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (Developmental Psychology, 2010, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 1–17), author Alison Clarke- Stewart’s name was misspelled as Aliso Clarke-Stewart. In addition, the e-mail address listed for the corresponding author Kathleen McCartney is incorrect. The correct e-mail address is: kathleen_mccartney@gse.harvard.edu. The online versions of this article have been corrected.] Prior research has documented associations between hours in child care and children’s externalizing behavior. A series of longitudinal analyses were conducted to address 5 propositions, each testing the hypothesis that child care hours causes externalizing behavior. Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were used in this investigation because they include repeated measures of child care experiences, externalizing behavior, and family characteristics. There were 3 main findings. First, the evidence linking child care hours with externalizing behavior was equivocal in that results varied across model specifications. Second, the association between child care hours and externalizing behavior was not due to a child effect. Third, child care quality and proportion of time spent with a large group of peers moderated the effects of child care hours on externalizing behavior. The number of hours spent in child care was more strongly related to externalizing behavior when children were in low-quality child care and when children spent a greater proportion of time with a large group of peers. The magnitude of associations between child care hours and externalizing behavior was modest. Implications are that parents and policymakers must take into account that externalizing behavior is predicted from a constellation of variables in multiple contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to McCartney et al. (2010).

Reports an error in "Testing a series of causal propositions relating time in child care to children’s externalizing behavior" by Kathleen McCartney, Margaret Burchinal, Aliso Clarke-Stewart, Kristen L. Bub, Margaret T. Owen and Jay Belsky (Developmental Psychology, 2010[Jan], Vol 46[1], 1-17). On the first page of the article “Testing a Series of Causal Propositions Relating Time in Child Care to Children’s Externalizing Behavior,” by Kathleen McCartney, Margaret Burchinal, Alison Clarke- Stewart, Kristen L. Bub, Margaret T. Owen, Jay Belsky, and the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (Developmental Psychology, 2010, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 1–17), author Alison Clarke- Stewart’s name was misspelled as Aliso Clarke-Stewart. In addition, the e-mail address listed for the corresponding author Kathleen McCartney is incorrect. The correct e-mail address is: kathleen_mccartney@gse.harvard.edu. The online versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2009-24671-001.) Prior research has documented associations between hours in child care and children’s externalizing behavior. A series of longitudinal analyses were conducted to address 5 propositions, each testing the hypothesis that child care hours causes externalizing behavior. Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were used in this investigation because they include repeated measures of child care experiences, externalizing behavior, and family characteristics. There were 3 main findings. First, the evidence linking child care hours with externalizing behavior was equivocal in that results varied across model specifications. Second, the association between child care hours and externalizing behavior was not due to a child effect. Third, child care quality and proportion of time spent with a large group of peers moderated the effects of child care hours on externalizing behavior. The number of hours spent in child care was more strongly related to externalizing behavior when children were in low-quality child care and when children spent a greater proportion of time with a large group of peers. The magnitude of associations between child care hours and externalizing behavior was modest. Implications are that parents and policymakers must take into account that externalizing behavior is predicted from a constellation of variables in multiple contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal employment and infant-mother attachment security at 12 months postpartum.

This study assessed the association between aspects of mother's employment and security of infant-mother attachment, in combination with proximal (maternal sensitivity) and distal (demographic, maternal, child, child-care) factors. Participants were 145 Australian mothers and their firstborn children. Attachment security was assessed with the Strange Situation at 12 months. Results showed that mothers' prenatal attitudes to work and timing of the return to work made significant, independent contributions to attachment outcomes over and above the effects of proximal and distal predictors. Mothers who expressed more commitment to work and less anxiety about using nonfamily child care, and who returned to work earlier, were more likely to have secure infants. These findings are considered in relation to contemporary expectations about mothers' participation in paid work and other predictors of secure attachment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can the age of entry into child care and the quality of child care predict adjustment in kindergarten?

Influences of age of child-care entry, quality of care, and family characteristics on social adjustment were contrasted in a longitudinal study of 80 children. Children at the toddler, preschool, and kindergarten periods and adult socialization in toddler period were assessed. Early-entry children in low-quality care had the most difficulty with peers in preschool and were distractible, low in task orientation, and less considerate of others in kindergarten. In 29 families observed prior to child-care entry, parents who would subsequently enroll children in low vs high quality care had more complex lives and used less appropriate socialization practices. Family socialization best predicted outcomes in children enrolled after infancy, and teacher socialization best predicted outcomes in children enrolled prior to 12 months. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transforming the child-care debate.

Criticizes L. B. Silverstein's (see record 1992-05293-001) article on child and maternal employment, which attacks what she perceives as the current agenda and misrepresents the nature and scope of current child-care research. N. Shpancer suggests that current child-care research is far from being confined by the myth of motherhood, and that it is largely aimed at exploring the factors contributing to quality care and those influencing both within-type and between-type differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creating trauma-informed systems: Child welfare, education, first responders, health care, juvenile justice.

Children and adolescents who are exposed to traumatic events are helped by numerous child-serving agencies, including health, mental health, education, child welfare, first responder, and criminal justice systems to assist them in their recovery. Service providers need to incorporate a trauma-informed perspective in their practices to enhance the quality of care for these children. This includes making sure that children and adolescents are screened for trauma exposure; that service providers use evidence-informed practices; that resources on trauma are available to providers, survivors, and their families; and that there is a continuity of care across service systems. This article reviews how traumatic stress impacts children and adolescents' daily functioning and how various service systems approach trauma services differently. It also provides recommendations for how to make each of these service systems more trauma informed and an appendix detailing resources in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network that have been produced to meet this objective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's social information processing: Family antecedents and behavioral correlates.

Little research has examined whether social information processing (SIP) measures from early childhood predict externalizing problems beyond the shared association with familial risk markers. In the present study, family antecedents and first-grade externalizing behaviors were studied in relation to preschool and 1st-grade SIP using data from the U.S. National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care (N=1,364). A subgroup of low-risk children reported only benign attributions in preschool and had few externalizing problems in 1st grade according to both teacher and mother reports. After controlling for gender and cognitive functioning, the authors found that maternal education and authoritarian attitudes were key predictors of this "Pollyanna preschooler" status and of SIP in 1st grade. However, small effect sizes for SIP variables underscore the need for new approaches to measurement and for further research on moderators of the link between SIP and children's behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toddlers' self-regulated compliance to mothers, caregivers, and fathers: Implications for theories of socialization.

To compare children's socialized behavior to parents and non-parental agents, this study examined self-regulated compliance to mothers and caregivers--an early form of internalization--in 90 toddlers, half of whom were also observed with fathers. Adults were observed in play, teaching, and discipline sessions with the child and were interviewed on child-rearing philosophies. Child cognition and emotion regulation were assessed, and naturalistic observations were conducted at child-care locations. Mean-level and rank-order stability were found in child compliance to the 3 adults. Child emotion regulation and adult warm control in a discipline situation were related to self-regulated compliance to the mother, caregiver, and father. Compliance to parents correlated with parental sensitivity and philosophies, and compliance to the caregiver correlated with child cognition and social involvement when child-care quality was controlled. Maternal sensitivity and warm control discipline predicted compliance to the caregiver but not vice versa. Results are consistent with theoretical positions on the generalization of socialization from the mother to non-maternal agents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)