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Does Day Care Enhance or Inhibit Development?

Opening Thoughts
Let me say from the beginning that I have no personal experience of day care, as a user or as a child myself.  Both of my parents worked throughout my most of childhood, primarily of financial necessity.  When not in the care of my mother I was cared for by my grandmother.  This worked very well all round for everyone, including me.  This is not always possible for many families today and I make no judgement on parents who place their child or children in day care.  But I was curious about the general effects of day care and so I did a little research and offer my general findings here for those who might be interested.

Overview
Placing pre-school children into day care with someone other than the parents or relatives with whom they live is often the norm today for many reasons.  This normally takes the form of the child being placed in regular, temporary care with a nanny, childminder or non-residential nursery.  Whether day care enhances or inhibits the development of a child does not have a simple ‘yes or no’ answer.  Many studies have been undertaken over the years, offering different views.  All unite in the concept that the attachments a child makes during its early years are central to its development.  To assess the effects of day care it is necessary to consider the primary sources of influence on a child’s development and to understand the basics of attachment theory.

Attachment Theory
Bowlby (1944, 1951, 1953) hypothesised that long-term deprivation from the primary attachment figure, the mother or main carer, during the critical period of 3-5 years of age is harmful to a child’s development. He suggested that the nature of monotropy (a vital and close bond with one main attachment figure) was innate and that any failure to initiate or to breakdown this primary attachment would lead to serious negative consequences.  He further suggested that a child should receive the continuous care of this main carer for the first two years of life, as it was the prototype for all future social relationships.
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that infants formed attachments in stages and attach to many figures.  They also found that the quality of care was important, indicating that infants may not attach to their mother if more sensitive and loving care came from elsewhere.  These results were not entirely reliable as the study was carried out on a limited sample, and interviewers and observers may have inadvertently influenced the results.  However, it did provide a basis for argument over Bowlby’s emphasis on attachment to the mother.
Rutter (1972) suggested that Bowlby’s maternal deprivation concept was too simple. He argued that deprivation referred to the loss of or damage to an attachment, whereas the failure of a child to develop an attachment was termed privation.  He suggested privation could have more serious consequences.  He considered that developmental problems were as much the result of a lack of social experience and stimulation provided by attachments, as the actual lack of attachment to a mother figure.  He further suggested that, with the right care, such problems could be overcome.
Ainsworth et al’s (1978) significant ‘strange situation’ study investigated the security of attachments in 1 to 2 year-olds, attempting to determine the types and nature of attachment behaviours.  In a series of short episodes where the mother and a stranger enter and leave the room, this study observed the infant’s behaviour for anxiety on separation from the mother, anxiety in presence of the stranger, and response to the mother when reunited with her.  Criticisms of this study included that it confined itself to attachment to the mother and that children may show different attachment behaviours on different occasions.  There were also concerns on ethical grounds because children were placed under stress and on ecological validity because the children were placed in a strange artificial environment.  As the children were all of middle class it was difficult to generalise the findings.  However, even considering these weaknesses, the classifications which evolved proved reliable when the test was used in later studies around the world, with the behaviour of the mother towards the child determining the child’s level of security.
These theories and studies formed the basic background for actual studies into the effects of day care on the social and cognitive development of children.

Effects of Day Care – a Literature Review
Shea (1981) assessed the social skills of 3-4 year-old children during their first 10 weeks of attending a nursery school, one group attending 5 days per week; the other twice a week.  Their behaviour was videotaped and both groups showed increasing social skills with less aggression and more interaction with others, with those attending 5 days a week improving more quickly.  This experiment concluded that day care had a positive effect on social development. It did not clarify the long-term effects of day care on children.
Belsky and Rovine (1988) analysed ‘strange situation’ studies where children had experienced day care prior to 12 months of age.  Children who had attended more than 20 hours per week showed more signs of insecure attachment than those with less or no day care.  They concluded that day care had a negative effect on social development.  However, Clarke-Stewart (1989) suggested this may have resulted from mothers having difficulty relating to their child rather than the actual experience of being at day care.
Vandell and Corasaniti (1990) studied over 200 predominantly middle class 8 year-olds.  Assessment was made via teacher ratings, academic grades, standardised tests and also retrospective parental recollections.  They concluded that children with more day care experience from an early age achieved poorer results in all test areas and that day care had a negative effect on cognitive development.  The study lacked external validity because the children were mainly from one socio-economic family status.  The natural-experimental methods used could not ensure that the negativity was simply due to attending day care as the quality of the day care was not considered.
Whitebook, Howes and Phillips (1989) (National Child Care Staffing Study) assessed over 200 day care centres for high, middle and low socio-economic status families.  Some 1300 teachers and staff were interviewed and over 250 children’s cognitive development was assessed using a variety of techniques.  Results showed a significant positive correlation between the quality of the day care and cognitive development, irrespective of socio-economic status.
Andersson et al (1992) carried out a longitudinal study on over 100 Swedish children aged 3-4 years from a variety of backgrounds, including single parent families.  Their type of day care was recorded together with the ages at which they began.  They were assessed at ages 8 and 13, their cognitive and social skills being assessed via IQ tests and teacher’s ratings.  They found that children who began day care before 12 months old showed the highest scores at ages 8 and 13.  Those that had no day care achieved the lowest scores.  It was noted that higher scores could have resulted from families having greater wealth, providing higher quality day care and a more enriched home life and that Sweden has a highly developed social welfare system with high quality day care at its core.  As the children came from mixed backgrounds, the results had external validity and could be generalised.  It did appear that day care could have long-term positive effects on cognitive development.  It also suggested a correlation between good results and the quality of day care.
Caughy, DiPietro and Strobino (1994) studied over 860 children of mixed ethnicity who attended day care during the first 3 years of life.  These were compared with a matched sample with no day care during the same period.  Testing at ages 5 to 6 found that those from poor home environments who attended day care scored higher on cognitive tests than those who had no day care experience.  Reading scores were higher for those children who began day care before 12 months old.
Ruhm et al (2000) recorded the cognitive abilities of 4000 infants to compare those who had day care with those who had none.  This recorded several negative effects, in particular, those attending day care during their first 12 months showed poorer verbal skills at 3-4 years of age. Poor maths and reading skills at 5-6 years of age were linked to attending day care during the first three years.  However, this study did not relate results to quality of day care.

Conclusions
Studies have concluded both positive and negative effects on social and cognitive development to a greater or lesser degree.  When considering the findings of these in relation to attachment theories it becomes obvious that, whilst each may have method flaws and weakness in conclusions, each has merit when considered collectively.
Consider evidence proffered by Schaffer (1990), particularly in its relevance today and why day care is increasingly utilised. This study suggested that children develop better with a mother who is happy in her work, than one who is frustrated by staying at home.  It can be inferred from this that children in day care develop better where home attachments are more secure.  Thus, we have a sort of balancing partnership.  The studies have clearly shown that quality of day care can have a great bearing on both cognitive and social development, even to the extent of overcoming the effects of a poor home life.  The quality of attachments, both at home and in day care, often outweigh concerns about maternal deprivation.
Attachments at home and at day care can and should work hand-in-hand, the one being an extension of the other, rather than separate entities.  Accepting that day care is the norm today, its quality is at the heart of its success, not just for the child, but also for the mother or home carer.  This partnership relates to the need for day care providers to have a greater understanding of the individual child and their family life.  Parents or home carers must recognise that their role includes working with their child’s day carers to ensure the provision and continuity of a happy, balanced and mixed environment.  This is a challenge for all who care for children, but the rewards of developing and improving this partnership are limitless in enhancing a child’s life, provided parents and carers place the changing needs of the individual child at the heart of their motivation and actions.

If you are interested in learning more about the studies and theories discussed in this article, most general psychology textbooks will have a section on attachment theory.  You can also “google” many of the terms on the Internet!

To learn more about childcare options in the UK, the government has a very useful website full of helpful information: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Childcare/index.htm

Author: Sisyphus for Kidz Things
February 2009