The relationship between child care subsidies and children's cognitive development

Child care subsidies help low-income families pay for child care while parents work or study. Few studies have examined the effects of child care subsidy use on child development, and no studies have done so controlling for prior cognitive skills. We use rich, longitudinal data from the ECLS-B data set to estimate the relationship between child care subsidy use and school readiness, using value-added regression models as well as parametric and non-parametric models with propensity score matching. Compared to a diverse group of subsidy non-recipients in various types of non-parental care as well as parental care only, we find that child care subsidy use during preschool is negatively associated with children's math skills at kindergarten entry. However, sensitivity analysis suggests that these findings could be easily overturned if unobserved factors affect selection into subsidy receipt.     

Impacts of child care subsidies on family and child well-being

This cross-sectional study compares 52 working poor families receiving subsidies for child care with 50 demographically matched families drawn from the subsidy waiting lists across three sets of variables: (1) maternal employment and income, (2) child care, and (3) child well-being. Compared to mothers from waiting lists, mothers receiving subsidies for their child’s care were more likely to be employed, spent half as much of their income on child care, and were less likely to be very poor. Compared to children on waiting lists, children receiving subsidies for child care were more likely to be in a formal licensed child care center, have more stable care, and have mothers who were more satisfied with their child care arrangement.     

Subsidizing child care: How child care subsidies affect the child care used by low-income African American families

To evaluate the type and quality of child care used by low-income families who were either receiving or not receiving subsidized child care, we interviewed 111 African American parents from a randomly selected sample of low-income families. We inquired about their child-care use, satisfaction with care, work stress, and employment history. Using standardized assessment instruments, independent observers in the children's child-care setting evaluated the quality of the care and characteristics of the providers. We found that families using subsidized child care were more likely to use center care and other more formal types of care, while families not using subsidized child care were more likely to use a relative in the relative's home. Families using subsidized care tended to use licensed and registered child-care arrangements more than non-subsidized families. Also, subsidized families spent approximately half as much out-of-pocket money for child care. However, we found no evidence that the care used by families using subsidized care was of any higher quality than that used by non-subsidized families. We examine the possibility that child-care subsidy programs may not be adequately designed or funded to increase the availability of quality child care to low-income families. Educators and policy makers may want to consider additional means of increasing access to quality care in low-income families.     

Child care licensing regulations and child care quality in four states

This study analyzed the child care rules and regulations from the four states that had previously been reviewed under the Child Care, Cost & Quality study. Child day care regulations for each of the states were analyzed through rubrics designed by the investigators in the domains of structure, operations, personnel, and context. A separate analysis was done comparing regulations for protecting the child versus regulations for enhancing child development. The four states were in general agreement in setting higher standards for child protection than for the enhancement of development. Such regulations support the image of child care programs being a “safe haven” rather than a “development enhancer.” The limited requirements for child care personnel and for community interaction also encourage that image. These minimum standards departed substantially from professional judgments about what is needed in child care settings. The authors proposed higher personnel standards, greater explicit emphasis on developmental enhancement, and more required interaction with parents and community contact.     

The relation of child care to cognitive and language development. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network

Children from 10 sites in the United States were followed from birth to age 3 to determine how experiences in child care relate to cognitive and language development (Ns varied between 595 and 856, depending on the assessment). Multiple assessments of family and child care environments and of cognitive and language competence were collected. Analyses that adjusted for maternal vocabulary score, family income, child gender, observed quality of the home environment, and observed maternal cognitive stimulation indicated that the overall quality of child care, and language stimulation in particular, was consistently but modestly related to cognitive and language outcomes at ages 15, 24, and 36 months. The effect sizes for high (top quartile) versus low (bottom quartile) quality ranged from .18 to .48. After adjusting for child care quality, cumulative experience in center-based care was associated with better outcomes than was participation in other types of care. The amount of time children spent in care was not related to outcomes. Children in exclusive maternal care did not differ systematically from children in child care. Tests for lagged relations of earlier child care experiences to later performance (adjusting for current child care) showed that language stimulation predicted subsequent cognitive and language performance 9 to 12 months later. Although children in center care at age 3 performed better than children in other types of care, earlier experience in child care homes was associated with better performance at age 3 than was experience in other types of care. The relations of child care variables to outcomes did not vary consistently as a function of family income, quality of home environment, child gender, or ethnic group.     

Child development in developing countries: child rights and policy implications

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey was used to provide information on feeding practices, caregiving, discipline and violence, and the home environment for young children across 28 countries. The findings from the series of studies in this Special Section are the first of their kind because they provide information on the most proximal context for development of the youngest children in the majority world using one of the only data sets to study these contexts across countries. Using the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular the Rights to Survival, Development and Protection, findings are explained with implications for international and national-level social policies. Implications are also discussed, with respect to policy makers and the larger international community, who have the obligation to uphold these rights.     

Child care workers' knowledge about reporting suspected child sexual abuse.

As reports of the sexual abuse of preschool-aged children increase and the number of children in day care expands, it is important to recognize child care workers as potentially important resource persons for sexually abused preschoolers. Although they are potential resources for abused children, they may fail to report suspected abuse if they do not know their legal responsibilities and their rights and protections under the law. The purpose of this study was to determine child care workers' knowledge about their reporting rights and responsibilities. Relative to child sexual abuse experts, day care personnel knew significantly less about the procedures for reporting suspected abuse and their protection under the law. Suggestions for improving child care workers' knowledge about reporting suspected sexual abuse cases are provided.     

幼儿教师专业发展的途径与方法研究

对幼儿教师专业发展现状进行调查和分析,以期为幼儿教师教育发展提供最基本的理论依据,更好地促进幼儿教师的专业发展。在幼儿教师专业发展中存在很多问题：师资队伍建设没有规划,专业配置不合理;学历达标率较高但专业程度不够扎实;教育教学教研问题突出;家园合作还停留于表浅水平;园长管理水平不够成熟。笔者提出幼儿教师专业发展的对策：制定师资队伍建设规划,建立和完善幼儿教师任用制度;改革师范院校幼师教育,确保幼师生源质量;加强教师自主专业发展,提高教育教学教研能力;加大宣传力度,推进家园合作;发挥终身学习方式,翻新自身专业素养;提升幼儿园园长的管理理念,为教师创造支持性发展平台;加强与其它教师培训机构的联系,开展多渠道的培训。     

Child care and low-income children's development: direct and moderated effects

A large literature has documented the influence of child care on young children's development, but few studies have examined low-income children in community care arrangements. Using data from Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study (N = 204), this study examined the influence of child care quality and the extent of care on low-income children's (ages 2-4 years) cognitive and socioemotional development over time. Higher levels of child care quality were modestly associated with improvements in children's socioemotional development, and extensive hours in child care were linked to increases in children's quantitative skills and decreases in behavior problems. Analyses suggest that child care quality may be particularly salient for subgroups of children from low-income families.     

Child care and family processes: Bi-directional relations between child care quality,home environments,and maternal depression

The current study examined whether within-family changes in child care quality and quantity predicted subsequent changes in home environment quality and maternal depression across early childhood (6 to 54 months of age). Data were drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1239; 77% White; 48% female; data collection from 1991 to 1996), and were analyzed using Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models. Within-family increases in child care quality predicted modest increases in home environment quality (β = .13–.17). These effects were most robust from child age 6 to 15 months. Increases in child care quality produced small, statistically non-significant, reductions in depression. Time-specific increases in child care quantity were not consistently predictive of either outcome.     

Day care quality, family and child characteristics and socioemotional development

The study investigated effects of day care quality in interaction with child and family characteristics on socioemotional development concurrently at 29 months and longitudinally at 4 years. By international standards, the study was performed in high-quality day care settings and in a fairly homogeneous group of well-functioning families. In a group of 52 children (M day care EXPERIENCE = 12.6 months at the age of 29 months), main effects of day care quality and effects due to interactions between such quality and the background characteristics of SES, home environment quality, gender, and infant manageability were studied. Socioemotional development was studied both in terms of children's problems (externalizing and internalizing) and positive aspects of functioning (positive emotional expressions and ego strength/effectance). The results showed a main effect of day care quality on expressions of positive emotions, and interactive effects were demonstrated for several of the other indicators of socioemotional functioning. Compensatory effects of high-quality care on externalizing behaviors for children from less advantaged homes as well as positive effects on boys' internalizing problems and ego strength/effectance were among the findings. Thus, using culturally relevant measures of day care quality, clear influences can be demonstrated even in a culture with a fairly uniform and high standard of care.     

Child care choices: A longitudinal study of children,families and child care in partnership with policy makers

Child Care Choices is an example of new early childhood research based on a relationship between policy makers and researchers. It is also an example of large-scale longitudinal team-based research into early childhood in Australia. The ongoing study addresses the professional problem for practitioners and policy makers of the increasing use of multiple care settings and changes to care arrangements in the early years and their possible impacts on child development. The project will follow an initial sample of 693 families with a child aged from birth to three years over a three-year period. An ecological framework is used to include the influences on child development of characteristics of the children and their families, their city or country location, as well as their childcare history and current care arrangements. Development is measured in terms of children’s health, motor development, social and emotional development, language and communication as well as emerging literacy and numeracy. The article discusses the unique features of the project in Australian early childhood research, its history, preliminary findings, and the potential of this kind of large-scale, longitudinal team-based research conducted in partnership with policy makers to contribute to policy as well as to theoretical debate.     

The Child Care HOME Inventories: assessing the quality of family child care homes

Versions of the HOME Inventory for use in family child care homes are described. The Infant/Toddler version is designed for use when children are less than 3 years old; the Early Childhood version for children ages 3–6. Psychometric characteristics of the child care versions of HOME are similar to the psychometric characteristics found for the original HOME used to measure the family environment. Child Care HOME scores were strongly related to intensive observational measures of behavior among child care providers and to measures of physical and organizational aspects of the environment. Because the inventories take less time and training to administer than most current measures of family child care, they may provide a way for licensing workers and others responsible for maintaining quality in child care to obtain useful information about this widely used but minimally monitored form of non-parental care.     

Child care effects on the development of toddlers with special needs

Among children with significant developmental delays or with biomedical risk factors for developing delays, those who were in nonmaternal child care (n=80) did not differ from children staying at home with their mothers (n=73) on mental, motor, or adaptive functioning; behavior problems; or attachment security at 30 months of age. An ecological model then was used to predict outcomes for children who had been observed in child care. After accounting for selection effects, child characteristics at 12 months of age, and quality of home caregiving, none of the child-care variables (age of entry, hours, quality) predicted mental or motor development or attachment security among children in nonmaternal care. Older age of entry into child care predicted greater behavioral organization during testing. Higher observed quality of caregiving in child care predicted better adaptive behavior. Additionally, quality of home caregiving predicted mental development, behavioral organization, and secure attachment to mother.     

Child care in Kenya

Kenya—East African nation of big game, tourism, thorn trees, and white sand beaches—is facing a new challenge in preschool education. With nearly 20 percent of the children under five in some type of child care situation, it is possible that everyday preschool experiences may be leading children either closer to, or away from, the values of their parents. The test for this relatively new nation is to find the proper balance between the goals of the preschool and the values of both traditional and modernized parents. It is a topic of equal importance in any nation where a great many preschoolers are cared for by persons other than their parents.     

Child care in the preschool years: Attachment,behaviour problems and cognitive development

The possible implications of the experience of non parental care on cognitive development and on behaviour problems are considered in interaction with individual and contextual variables. A sample of 47 Swiss children who experienced varying kinds of care arrangements were studied longitudinally between 1 and 5 years of age. The effects of the experience of care were related to mothers’ reports of behavioral problems (CBCL, with subscales of internalizing and of externalizing problems) at age 5, and to cognitive developmental quotients (at 1, 2 and 5 years). Several variables were considered for their potential interaction with the experience of care, such as the pattern of attachment to the mother (observed at 21 months of age in the “Strange Situation”), characteristics of the experience of care (duration and type of care), its quality (relationship with non parental caregivers), the socio-economic status of the family, etc. The effect of non parental care on behaviour problems (5 years) happened to be mediated by the the pattern of attachment to the mother: insecurely attached children had some risk to be reported as having externalizing problems, but this didn’t occur when they had an extended experience of non parental care, and when non parental care was mainly family-based. The effect of non parental care on cognitive development was mediated by the quality of care: children with a positive contact with the caregivers had greater cognitive gains between 2 and 5 years; the relationship with the care-givers itself was influenced by the quality of the relationship with the mother. The limited size and origin of the sample restricts generalization, however these data might contribute to the notion that non parental care can have varying effects depending of the type of care, the quality of the relation with the caregivers, the age and personal traits of the child.     

Child development and evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary developmental psychology involves the expression of evolved, epigenetic programs, as described by the developmental systems approach, over the course of ontogeny. There have been different selection pressures on organisms at different times in ontogeny, and some characteristics of infants and children were selected in evolution to serve an adaptive function at that time in their life history rather than to prepare individuals for later adulthood. Examples of such adaptive functions of immaturity are provided from infancy, play, and cognitive development. Most evolved psychological mechanisms are proposed to be domain specific in nature and have been identified for various aspects of children's cognitive and social development, most notably for the acquisition of language and for theory of mind. Differences in the quality and quantity of parental investment affect children's development and influence their subsequent reproductive and childcare strategies. Some sex differences observed in childhood, particularly as expressed during play, are seen as antecedents and preparations for adult sex differences. Because evolved mechanisms were adaptive to ancestral environments, they are not always adaptive for contemporary people, and this mismatch of evolved mechanisms with modern environments is seen in children's maladjustment to some aspects of formal schooling. We argue that an evolutionary perspective can be valuable for developing a better understanding of human ontogeny in contemporary society and that a developmental perspective is important for a better understanding of evolutionary psychology.