NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2003). Does quality of child care affect child outcomes at age 4 ½?. Developmental Psychology, 39.
Research on child care reveals significant associations between quality of care and children’s developing skills and well-being. But are these associations causal? Data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a longitudinal, nonexperimental study of children from birth to age 4 ½, were used to explore five propositions, which, if satisfied, would support a causal argument. Three propositions received support, principally in the cognitive domain: (a) associations between quality and outcomes remained even with child and family factors controlled; (b) associations between care and outcomes were domain-specific; (c) outcomes were predicted by the quality of earlier care with concurrent care controlled. The fourth proposition, that associations between quality and outcomes would be significant when the child’s earlier abilities were controlled, received limited support. There was no support for the fifth proposition, that quality and outcomes would exhibit dose-response relations. Thus, the argument that child-care quality affects child outcomes was only partially supported by this investigation.
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