Pre-school children who receive good quality childcare have benefits related to academic and cognitive achievement which persist right up to the end of their high school years, according to an ongoing study. Quality childcare generally refers to how much time the provider spends interacting with the children, as well as the quality of support, cognitive stimulation and warmth the children receive.

This may be good news for parents with very young children who are concerned about the benefits versus disadvantages of them both out at work.

The researchers also found that there was a link between impulsiveness and hours spent in childcare – with the longer period tending towards slightly greater impulsiveness and risk-taking.

The aim of this study is to provide data for the policy debate on whether both parents should be out at work when their children are very young, and whether childcare benefits the child, parents and society generally.

James Griffin, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which paid for the study, said:

“High quality child care appears to provide a small boost to academic performance, perhaps by fostering the early acquisition of school readiness skills.

The current findings reveal that the modest association between early childcare and subsequent academic achievement and behavior seen in earlier study findings persists through childhood and into the teen years.”

Prof. Deborah Lowe Vandell and team followed the developments of 1,364 children from 1991 when they were aged one month. The researchers assessed the type of daycare, how many hours each child was in daycare for, collected the data from standardized tests, interviewed the children when they were in their teens, as well as their teachers, school staff and parents.

The authors reported that over 40% of the children had received high-quality care and 90% had spent some time in the care of another person (not a parent) by the time they were four years old.

D. Vandell of the University of California, Irvine said:

“These results underscore the importance of interaction between children and their daytime caregivers. We’re seeing enduring effects of the quality of staff-child interaction.”

However, a second study, involving 150 children (aged 3 and 4 years) from 110 different family childcare homes, found that excessive interaction may be harmful. The children were mostly white and middle class. Prof. Megan Gunnar, University of Minnesota and team from the Oregon Social Learning Center found that approximately 40% of the children in their study had raised levels of cortisol – a stress hormone – cortisol levels had been raised enough to indicate that their bodies were stressed. Cortisol levels in children whose child care providers were over-controlling or intrusive rose.

Intrusiveness or over-controlling was measured by the free-play vs. structured activities led by the providers ratio.

In such (intrusive, over-controlling) settings:

  • Children moved frequently between activities
  • Children were given relatively little time for free play
  • They spent long periods of time in structured activities led by the providers

While many of these structured activities seemed designed to help the preschoolers learn letters, numbers, and colors, the activities weren’t carried out in a way that allowed the children to learn actively through play, but rather in a rote fashion that required the little ones to sit quietly and respond when called on.

Raised cortisol levels made the boys angrier and more aggressive, and the girls more anxious and vigilant at child care. Cortisol is a hormone that helps individuals adapt to challenges and stretches their coping skills.

Prof. Gunnar said:

“These findings indicate that the behavior of the care provider is associated with both how well children function at child care, and how much their cortisol is elevated. They add to our understanding of how children process stressors in child care, highlighting differences between boys and girls in how they express being more physiologically stressed.”

“Do Effects of Early Child Care Extend to Age 15 Years? Results From the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development”
Deborah Lowe Vandell, Jay Belsky, Margaret Burchinal, Laurence Steinberg, Nathan Vandergrift
Child Development Published Online: May 13 2010 5:44PM
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01431.x

“The Rise in Cortisol in Family Day Care: Associations With Aspects of Care Quality, Child Behavior, and Child Sex”
Megan R. Gunnar, Erin Kryzer, Mark J. Van Ryzin, Deborah A. Phill
ips
Child Development Published Online: May 13 2010 5:44PM DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01438.x

Written by Christian Nordqvist