Regardless of the quality of non-parental child care, children from low-quality home environments had more behavioral problems and children from high-quality homes had fewer behavioral problems.
SES: Higher income families, income-to-needs ratio of 4:1
Eligibility: Children in non-maternal child care
Additional: Subsample of families in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development
Hypotheses
Children with both low-quality home and non-maternal care would exhibit more internalizing and externalizing problems, more disruptive behaviors and fewer pro-social behaviors than would children in any other group.
High-quality child care would bring children experiencing low-quality home environments into the range of children experiencing average-quality home environments.
Variables Measured, Instruments Used
Predictors -
parenting quality predictor scores: calculated from scores on the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) administered at 15, 36 and 54 months
maternal sensitivity: rated through videotaped interactions at 24, 36 and 54 months
quality of the child’s primary non-maternal child care setting: using the ORCE from the original study by the NICHD ECCRN
Child outcomes -
behavior problems and pro-social behavior: collected from mothers and primary caregivers
the Child Behavior Checklist
the Adaptive Social Behavior Inventory (ASBI)
Design—Longitudinal
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Findings
Mothers who were characterized by low-quality HOME scores and low maternal sensitivity portrayed their children as having more internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and showing less pro-social behaviors than children in homes or child care programs in the middle of the quality distribution when their children were also in low-quality child care.
The mothers' ratings of behavior problems did not differ from the reference group when the children were experiencing low-quality home care and were in high-quality child care.
Caregivers reported fewer externalizing behaviors for children who experienced a home environment categorized as high quality regardless of their child care settings.
Limitations
Non-experimental study design
The sample over-represents children and families experiencing lower risk.
The HOME assessment was not conducted at 24 months.