Center-based child care and cognitive skills development: Importance of timing and household resources.

Abstract

Growing evidence has linked center-based early care and education settings to improvements in children's cognitive skills. Additional research is needed to more carefully delineate when and for whom these associations are most pronounced. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (N <= 6,350;Flanagan & West, 2004), this study examined whether the beneficial effects of center-based care settings for children's cognitive skills at age 5 differ by the age at which children experience these settings and for subgroups based on household income, parental education, and quality of the home leaming environment. The results suggest that center-based preschool was supportive of the math and reading skills development of the sample as a whole. However, both center-and home-based care for 2-year-olds as well as 4-year-olds were beneficial for children from lower income, less educated, and less enriching family contexts, helping to diminish the cognitive skills gap between more and less advantaged children.

Center-Based Preschool and School Readiness Skills of Children From Immigrant Families

“…Parent, family, and child characteristics. Several parent, family, and child characteristics were incorporated as covariates because of their connections in prior research with both EEC use and children's school readiness skills Miller et al, 2014;Votruba-Drzal et al, 2013). Time-varying covariates were drawn from Waves 1 and 2 to provide temporal precedence.…”

“…Indeed, Koury and Votruba-Drzal (2014) have shown that there are differences in several aspects of children's home environments related to parental region of origin, including the provision of cognitive stimulation and emotional support. Based on prior research that shows that center-based EEC is associated with the greatest cognitive skills gains among children from less advantaged home environments (Bradley, McKelvey, & Whiteside-Mansell, 2011;Magnuson et al, 2004;Votruba-Drzal et al, 2013), we hypothesize that there may be variability in the implications of center-based EEC experiences based on parental region of origin.…”

Does policy matter? The effect of increasing child care subsidy policy generosity on program outcomes

“…Program continuity supports stability of child care arrangements which is associated with more positive child outcomes (Howes & Hamilton, 1992;Loeb, Fuller, Kagan, & Carrol, 2004). Although quality varies within all types of care (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2002), center care has been found to be associated with positive cognitive outcomes for children, especially those from low-income households (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2002;Votruba-Drzal, Coley, Koury, & Miller, 2013). Few studies have examined the relationship between subsidy policy generosity and program outcomes (Michalopoulos, 2010;Michalopoulos, Lundquist, & Castells, 2010;Schexnayder & Schroeder, 2008;Witte & Queralt, 2005).…”

Patterns of Childcare Arrangements and Cognitive Development

“…The longitudinal analysis of amount of time spent in non-maternal childcare showed inconsistent findings; some suggested significant association with child cognitive outcomes [13], some others did not [2,5,6,9]. Significant associations were found when types of childcare were examined separately.…”