Factors which affect the experience of day care for children are the quality of care (good quality would have real stimulation for the children and they would be regularly attended), the time which is spent in care – some may be in care for longer than others, the age in which the child is in care, the individual differences between each child which goes and each place which they go to, and the quality of the home care.
The effects of day care on cognitive development are related to the quality of the setting in which the children are going to day care. Some psychologists say that day care has good effects on cognitive behaviour. Some studies have proven that in situations where the quality of studies is high, and where there are enrichment programmes linked to the school, there are beneficial effects on the children. Hazen and Durrett in 1982 found that children who were securely attached were more independent workers and were more innovative in their ways of solving problems. However this was restricted to securely attached children, and the results may have varied if it was on another child with a different type of attachment. They may have also only been looking at certain age groups where perhaps their development was already further on than some other types of children.
The NICHD study however followed 1,300 children through childhood and they concluded that the higher the quality in the first 3 years of life the better the language of the child is at 15 months, 24 and 36 months, and also better performance on the Bayley scales.
Psychologists have found some negative effects on cognitive behaviour and day care as well. Russell (1999) conducted a survey on the findings of 100 studies of daycare and concluded that overall the effects of daycare on children were negative. However this study was old and the quality in which day care was surveyed in could have been improved since 1957. Yet there is continual research which shows links between poor cognitive development and daycare. Ruhm (2000) found that preschool children who had been in daycare before 3 years had lower reading and maths skills. There is more evidence that daycare has negative effects on cognitive development than positive evidence. A reason for this is lack of stimulation.
There is a considerable amount of evidence to show that day care can have a negative effect on children’s social development, yet there is also evidence to show that it can be beneficial towards children. A study by Clarke-Stewart et al in1994 concluded that the children who attended day care in the first 3 years showed better social skills and coped better in social situations than those who hadn’t. Also enrichment programmes which have been introduced such as the Scope Perry Preschool project have shown positive effects on social over a long period of time.
However there have also been negative effects of day-care on children’s social development. The Belsky study in 2003 shows that the more time children spend in day care the more likely they are to show aggressive and disobedient behaviour between the ages of 4 and 8. It is argued that the quality of the day care comes into play as those who experience low-quality day care will be the ones who experience the negative effects, because they won’t experience having a close bond with the primary caregiver at home. Conversely, a study by Harvey in 1999 showed that children suffered no permanent harm because of the absence of their mothers. It was also concluded that the outcomes of whether or not day-care had any effect at all on social development depended on the quality. Pennebaker et al have speculated over which gender is affected more, however research suggests that boys are affected more.
Whether day-care has negative or positive effects on children’s development overall, it is hard to draw a final conclusion because the evidence suggests that it has both positive and negative effects.
