CHILD-CARE QUALITY AND CHILDRENS BEHAVIORAL-ADJUSTMENT - A 4-YEAR LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

Studies of extensive, full-time child care in infancy and early childh ood have shown negative, positive and no effects on children's social- emotional development. The current study explored the prediction of ch ildren's behavioral adjustment 4 years after assessments of daycare ce nter quality (e.g. caregiver-child interactions, caregiver-to-child ra tios) and of the home and family environment (e.g. parental stress, di scipline). Participants included 141 school-age children (73 girls) an d 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 individua l differences in adjustment 4 years later, particularly for maternal r atings of child behaviors. By contrast, indicators of center quality w ere generally unrelated to mother and teacher ratings of behavioral ad justment. Copyright (C) 1996 Association for Child Psychology and Psyc hiatry.