Child care quality and children's behavioral adjustment: a four-year longitudinal study.
Studies of extensive, full-time child care in infancy and early childhood have shown negative, positive and no effects on children's social-emotional development. The current study explored the prediction of children's behavioral adjustment 4 years after assessments of daycare center quality (e.g. caregiver-child interactions, caregiver-to-child ratios) and of the home and family environment (e.g. parental stress, discipline). Participants included 141 school-age children (73 girls) and their employed mothers (91% Euro-American) who had made use of full-time child care when the children were toddlers or preschoolers. Home environment factors and earlier behaviors were predictive of individual differences in adjustment 4 years later, particularly for maternal ratings of child behaviors. By contrast, indicators of center quality were generally unrelated to mother and teacher ratings of behavioral adjustment.
Deater-Deckard
K
K
Institute of Psychiatry, London, U.K.
Pinkerton
R
R
Scarr
S
S
D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D002656:Child Day Care Centers; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011786:Quality Control; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012931:Social Environment