Child Care and Young Children’s Development Research Issues: Research designs are generally correlational There are many different “features” of child care that may influence children’s development

Features of Child Care: Age of entry (How old when placed in child care?) Quantity of care (How many hours/week?) Quality of care (e.g., caregiver-child ratio; physical environment/materials; caregiver sensitivity/responsiveness) Type of care (e.g., center, family day care, nanny)

NICHD Study of Early Child Care: 1,300 families in multiple locations across the US Children followed from birth to age 15 Measurement of different features of child care Measurement of many family factors that could be “third variables”

Attachment Security NICHD Study: Infants were more likely to be insecurely attached at 15 months only if: Child care arrangements changed frequently, child care quality was low, or children spent more hours in care AND Mothers were not very sensitive to their children

Cognitive/Language Development NICHD Study: Children in parental care and children in child care did not differ in cognitive or language development across the first 4.5 years of life Within the group of children in child care, higher quality care was related to better language skills and pre-academic skills at 4.5 years

Socioemotional Development NICHD Study: More time in child care over the first 4.5 years of life was related to Lower social competence (rated by teachers, mothers) at 4.5 years More behavior problems such as aggression, disobedience, and inattention at 4.5 years and in kindergarten (rated by child care providers, mothers, and/or teachers) More adult-child conflict at 4.5 years and in kindergarten (rated by child care providers and teachers)

Important Qualifications: The correlations between quantity of care and children’s outcomes were not strong Quality of care was also related to children’s outcomes (better quality related to better adjustment) Maternal sensitivity was more strongly related to children’s outcomes than quantity of care

Only a small proportion of children in the sample scored in the “at-risk” range for behavior problems, even if they spent a lot of time in child care over the first 4.5 years of life