RELATIONS BETWEEN FAMILY PREDICTORS AND CHILD OUTCOMES - ARE THEY WEAKER FOR CHILDREN IN CHILD-CARE

Studies suggesting that family factors predict developmental outcomes more strongly for children reared principally by their parents than th ose with extensive early child-care experience stimulated the examinat ion of the differential prediction of child outcomes using a subsample of families participating in the National Institute of Child Health a nd Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. A variety of f actors were used to predict development of children who averaged 30 hr of nonparental care per week for each month of their lives and for th ose who never experienced more than 10 hr of care per week by someone other than their mothers. Multivariate analyses provided no evidence t hat family factors predicted outcomes differentially for these 2 group s, though exploratory analyses revealed several instances of different ial prediction.