day care Flashcards
(13 cards)
what are the advantages of day care?
- opportunity to socialise with peers and develop their social skills
- increased independence
- field (1991) argued that the amount of time spent in full DC positively correlated with number of friends they had when they started school
- intellectual benefits
what are disadvantages of day care?
- may create emotional deprivation and negative effect of attachment
- NICHD data = increased time in DC = increase disobediance
- behavioural problems
what did violato and russel find?
they conducted a meta-analysis of 88 studies and found:
- more than 20 hours a week of daycare had a significant effect on:
- social developent
- attachment
- aggression
but this was only short term
what did the NICHD study find?
studied 1,394 families over 16 years from birth to 16 across america
- it showed that more time in day care for a 5 year old led to more aggression and disobediance
what did the EPPE study find?
studied 3000 children from 3-7 in the UK
incresed independence and sociability in children who had attended day care and this is supported by field
what did zigler and styfco find?
reported that in general, head start children showed IQ gainsof about 10 points in the first year but this usually disappeared
- long term - ppts were more likely to obtain a high school certificate
what is good quality day care?
when suitable substitute emotional care is provided, there may be no ill effects but the quality of care must be high
what are the key factors of good quality day care?
- good staff to child ratio of about 1:3 for babies and 1:5 for children
- staff should be given responsibility for individual children so they can become secondary attachment figures
- staff should be trained and encouraged to stay in their job to reduce staff turnover
what is a strength of the research into day care?
support from longitudinal studies
- large scale longitudinal studies such as the NICHD study produce a wealth of data about both children and their families
- the sample was large and represented a wide range of different backgrounds.
what is the competing argument of the strength?
the research is correlational so the data cannot show that day care caused behavioural issues
- dingfelder argues that the results are meaningless unless one knows the processes by which aggression is increased
what is a weakness of the research into daycare?
the conclusion drawn may not be the only one
- there are other findings from the NICHD study that did not receive as much media attention, that the results related to aggression can be stated differently.
- 83% of children who spent 10-30 hours er week did not show higher levels of aggression compared to children who spent less or none
how can this be applied?
to make recommendations about how children can best be cared for
- should be focusing on good ratios, ability to form attachments
what is the weakness that there are other factors affecting aggression?
- the NICHD data actually showed that a mother’s sensitivity to her child was a better indicator of reported problem behaviours than was time in day care, with more sensitive mothering being linked to fewer problem behaviours
- higher maternal education and family income also predicted lower levels of children’s problems behaviours
