This project involves analyses of data from a longitudinal study in Sweden examining the effects of center day care, family day care, and home care on the development of 145 children recruited at an average of 16 months of age. Multivariate analyses completed in FY88 using Wold's Partial Least Squares """"""""soft modelling"""""""" procedure indicated that type of care had no reliable impact on the children one and two years post- enrollment. The quality of care received at home and the quality of alternative care had the most consistent and equivalent impact on personality maturity and emergent social skills with peers and adults. Measures of family social support networks, temperament, and child gender had more modest effects. PLS analyses also showed that quality of home care was the most important predictor of intellectual competence one and two years after enrollment. Compliance with maternal requests in a task-like situation was most strongly predicted by the quality of care received at home. The quality and extent of alternative care were also significant predictors of compliance. The significance of these findings lies in their emphasis on the need to consider not only the type but also the quality of out-of- home care, and to consider the role of factors outside the care setting--such as the quality of home care--when evaluating day care arrangements. Other work on this project involves a small but intensive study of family day care in Utah and an exploration of the association between day care and security of infant-mother attachment in nearly two dozen studies conducted by other investigators. Data for both projects are currently being prepared for analysis.
| Ahnert, Lieselotte; Gunnar, Megan R; Lamb, Michael E et al. (2004) Transition to child care: associations with infant-mother attachment, infant negative emotion, and cortisol elevations. Child Dev 75:639-50 |
| Ahnert, Lieselotte; Lamb, Michael E (2003) Shared care: establishing a balance between home and child care settings. Child Dev 74:1044-9 |
