The article chosen for review is “Infant and Toddler Child-Care Quality and Stability in Relation to Proximal and Distal Academic and Social Outcomes”. This article is written by “Bratsch‐Hines, M. E., Carr, R., Zgourou, E., Vernon‐Feagans, L. and Willoughby, M.”, and it is published in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development in November 2020.
The research examined the effects of stable, high-quality, non-parental child-care on infants and toddlers’ linguistic, social, and intellectual development. There is a substantial correlation between a child’s subsequent accomplishment and success into adolescence and the quality of their interactions with adults in the first three years of their lives. These relationships are crucial in developing the child’s linguistic and social abilities. A child’s ability to communicate and interact with others is highly predictive of the quality of their connections with their parents. Nevertheless, many American children spend a lot of time in infant and toddler child-care facilities, interacting with caring individuals, before they start attending a non-parental daycare. This research is the first to link consistent caregiving throughout infancy and toddlerhood to later-in-life developmental outcomes, such as success in elementary school and proximal developmental outcomes, such as readiness for school entrance.
Researchers drew their sample from the Family Life Project (FLP), a long-term study of low-income rural areas in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. 1055 FLP children were included in this study if they were reported to have been in non-maternal childcare at least once at six, fifteen, twenty-four, or thirty-six months. The researchers in this study used epidemiological sampling techniques for their data collection. Data is gathered by using home and/or child-care visits. The parents of the children were interviewed in their homes, while the caregivers and children were evaluated at daycare centers. This study employs a quantitative research approach. The complicated sample strategy was accounted for using structural equation modeling in Mplus. The models employed weights and stratification factors.
This study showed that children whose caregivers engaged in more positive verbal interactions with them had better language abilities at 36 months. Kindergarten social skills were more significant for children who had more consistent caregivers. The availability of a caring adult is a critical component of high-quality childcare because it increases the likelihood that children will participate in reciprocal relationships, develop social skills (such as asking for and receiving attention), and expand their language and vocabulary. Children who can communicate well in the early years have a leg up when it comes to thriving in the classroom and making friends. At 36 months, a child’s language abilities were favorably correlated with the number of verbal contacts between him and his child-care provider. In addition, the correlation between verbal exchanges between caregivers and children and the academic and social abilities shown by kindergarten-aged children was entirely mediated by the children’s 36-month language capabilities.
The primary focus of this research was the relationship between children’s proximal and distal social and academic results and the stability and quality of their childcare. The results showed that by the time children were 36 months old, their language abilities had improved with more verbal contact with their childcare provider. Children verbal interaction with their caregivers influenced their cognitive and social abilities in kindergarten. Their 36-month language capabilities mediated children’s relationship with their caregivers. Kindergarten teachers found a correlation between caregiver stability and students’ social skills; students whose caregivers were more stable from 6 to 36 months scored better on the test. This discussion provides an extensive analysis of the research conducted.
Despite the lack of a clear heading for the study’s conclusion, the study’s final paragraph implies that children living in remote areas would benefit from having access to stable, high-quality childcare. Nevertheless, these results regarding the stability and quality of childcare were of modest magnitude.
Works Cited
Bratsch‐Hines, Mary E., et al. “Infant and toddler child‐care quality and stability in relation to
proximal and distal academic and social outcomes.” Child Development 91.6 (2020): 1854-1864.
Cite This Work
To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below:
