Early Care and Education

Success By 6 is committed to - Improving Child Care Quality

• Instituting child care accreditation as the county standard
• Increasing access to child care for low-income, working families
• Building the child care infrastructure
• Every dollar spent now on early childhood education will save more than $7 later in special education, welfare, prisons and crime.
• Research on the long-term effects of early childhood programs indicates that children who attend good quality child care programs, even at very young ages, demonstrate positive outcomes, while children attending poor quality programs show negative effects.
• Typically, high quality child care can predict academic success, adjustment to school and reduction of behavioral problems for children in first grade. (Howes, 1988)

Does quality matter in early care and education?

A review of the research literature indicates that child care quality "matters" at several levels. In terms of children's everyday experiences, children appear happier and more cognitively engaged in settings in which caregivers are interacting with them positively and in settings in which child:adult ratios are lower. There also is evidence of concurrent relations between child care quality and children's performance in other settings. Children who attend higher-quality child care settings (measured by caregiver behaviors, by physical facilities, by age-appropriate activities, and by structural and caregiver characteristics) display better cognitive, language, and social competencies on standardized tests and according to parents, teachers, and observers. Finally, there is evidence that child care quality is related to children's subsequent competencies.

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What does the research show ?

Among child care researchers, the established view is that child care quality contributes to children's developmental outcomes, higher quality care being associated with better developmental outcomes and poorer quality care being associated with poorer outcomes for children.¹ This view is reflected in Michael Lamb's (1998) comprehensive critique of child care research that was published in the Handbook of Child Psychology. Lamb concluded, based on extant research, that: "Quality day care from infancy clearly has positive effects on children's intellectual, verbal, and cognitive development, especially when children would otherwise experience impoverished and relatively unstimulating home environments. Care of unknown quality may have deleterious effects." (p. 104)

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Ratios and group size

When child:adult ratios are lower, caregivers spend less time managing children in their classrooms and children appear less apathetic and distressed.² When child:adult ratios are lower, caregivers offer more stimulating, responsive, warm, and supportive care.³ Ratios also are associated with global process quality scores.⁴ For example, in a study of 414 children who resided in three states, Howes et al. (1992) determined that "good" and "very good" scores on the Infant-Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (ITERS) and Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS) were more likely in infant classrooms with ratios of 3:1 or less, in toddler classrooms with ratios of 4:1 or less, and in preschool classrooms with ratios of 9:1 or less. More than half of the infant classrooms with ratios higher than 4:1 and preschool classrooms with ratios higher than 5:1 received scores that were categorized as "inadequate."

Group size also has been considered in relation to process quality. The NICHD Study of Early Child Care (1996) determined group size to be uniquely associated with positive caregiving. Similarly, Ruopp et al. (1979) reported group size to predict caregiver behavior even when child:adult ratio was controlled. In these studies, caregivers were more responsive, socially stimulating, and less restrictive when there were fewer children in their classrooms.

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Education and training

Caregivers' formal education and specialized training also are related to quality of care. Caregivers who have more formal education⁵ and more specialized training pertaining to children⁶ offer care that is more stimulating, warm, and supportive. Highly educated and specially trained caregivers also are more likely to organize materials and activities into more age-appropriate environments for children.⁷ These settings, in turn, are more likely to receive higher scores on the global quality scales such as the ECERS, ITERS, ORCE, and CC-HOME.⁸

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Health and safety

More hygienic practices by staff and children⁹ are associated with fewer respiratory illnesses and other infectious diseases. These practices include frequent handwashing after diapering, before meals, and after nose wiping. Child injuries in child care settings are most likely to occur on playgrounds and are most due to falls from climbing equipment.¹⁰ Height of the equipment and lack of an impact-absorbing surface under the equipment have been consistently identified as the factors most highly associated with injuries that required medical treatment.

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Social / emotional development

Associations between caregiver-child interactions and children's interactions with peers also have been reported. Children who have more positive interactions with their caregivers and more secure relationships with their caregivers appear more pro-social and positively engaged with their classmates.¹¹ Children who have opportunities to participate in activities such as art, blocks, and dramatic play demonstrate greater cognitive competence during their free play.¹² Taken together, these studies suggest that experiences associated with better quality foster competent performance in the child care setting. By the same token, children are less likely to display competent behavior in child care settings characterized by lower process quality.

Finally, process quality is related to children's social and emotional functioning. High-quality care as measured is related to greater child interest and participation, whereas poorer process quality is associated with heightened behavior problems.¹³ The Bermuda Study¹⁴ found higher ECERS scores to predict both caregiver and parent reports of children's considerateness and sociability, and caregiver reports of children's higher intelligence and task orientation and less anxiety.

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Long-lasting benefits and return on investments

More than other educational innovations, high-quality programs for young children living in poverty have demonstrated the promise of lasting benefits and return on investment. Various longitudinal studies have documented such benefits.

One intensive study, the High/Scope study as reported by Schweinhart et al. (1993), found evidence that program participation had positive effects on adult crime, earnings, wealth, welfare dependence, and commitment to marriage.

The High/Scope study found that 29% of those who had participated in the program reported monthly earnings at age 27 of $2,000 or more, significantly more than the 7% of non-participants who reported such earnings. For men, the difference was due to better paying jobs: 42% of participants as compared to only 6% of non-participants reported such monthly earnings. For women, the difference was in employment rates: 80% of participants but only 55% of non-participants were employed at the time of the age-27 interview. Significantly more of the program group than the no-program group owned their own homes (36% versus 13%) and owned second cars (30% versus 13%). Significantly fewer program group members than no-program group members received welfare assistance or other social services as adults (59% versus 80%). The study found that 40% of women who had participated in the program, but only 8% of those who had not, were married at age 27; while 57% of the births to program females were out-of-wedlock, 83% of the births to no-program females were out-of-wedlock.

The 1993 Schweinhart et al. study also involved a systematic analysis of the costs and benefits of the preschool program and its effects, expressed in constant 1992 dollars discounted annually at 3%. The program returned to taxpayers $88,433 per participant from the following sources:

• savings in schooling, due primarily to reduced need for special education services, and despite increased college costs for preschool-program participants;
• higher taxes paid by preschool-program participants because they had higher earnings;
• savings in welfare assistance; and
• savings to the criminal justice system and to potential victims of crimes.

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Empowerment for children, teachers and parents!

These studies suggest that high-quality programs for young children produce significant long-term benefits because they empower young children, parents, and teachers. High-quality programs empower young children by encouraging them to initiate their own learning activities. The idea that young children initiate their own learning activities rather than act as mere passive recipients of information from others is central to developmentally appropriate preactice for young children. Such active learning encourages children to solve their everyday intellectual, social, and physical problems and to assume a measure of control over their environment.

Such programs empower parents by involving them as partners with teachers in supporting their children's development. Most of the pre-school programs found to have long-temp benefits including weekly home visits or emphasized parent involvement in other ways. The programs strengthened parents' ability to view their children as able, active learners and to support their children's development of a sense of control and of intellectual, social, and physical abilities.

Such programs empower teachers by providing them with in-service curriculum training and supportive curriculum supervision, which help them engage in practices that support children and parents. Such training is most successful in promoting quality when agencies have supportive administrations and trained curriculum specialists on staff who provide teachers with hands-on workshops, observation and feedback, and follow-up sessions (Epstein, 1993).

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References

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Licensing & Accreditation