Elsevier

The Journal of Pediatrics

Volume 165, Issue 4, October 2014, Pages 813-819.e3
The Journal of Pediatrics

Original Article
Quality of Childcare Influences Children's Attentiveness and Emotional Regulation at School Entry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2014.06.011Get rights and content

Objective

To examine the association between domain-specific qualities of formal childcare at age 2-3 years and children's task attentiveness and emotional regulation at age 4-5 and 6-7 years.

Study design

We used data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 1038). Three domain-specific aspects of childcare quality were assessed: provider and program characteristics of care, activities in childcare, and carer–child relationship. Two self-regulatory abilities were considered: task attentiveness and emotional regulation. Associations between domain-specific qualities of childcare and self-regulation were investigated in linear regression analyses adjusted for confounding, with imputation for missing data.

Results

There was no association between any provider or program characteristics of care and children's task attentiveness and emotional regulation. The quality of activities in childcare were associated only with higher levels of emotional regulation at age 4-5 years (β = 0.24; 95% CI, 0.03-0.44) and 6-7 years (β = 0.26; 95% CI, 0.04-0.48). Higher-quality carer–child relationships were associated with higher levels of task attentiveness (β = 0.20; 95% CI, 0.05-0.36) and emotional regulation at age 4-5 years (β = 0.19; 95% CI, 0.04-0.34) that persisted to age 6-7 years (β = 0.26; 95% CI, 0.10-0.42; β = 0.31; 95% CI, 0.16-0.47).

Conclusion

Among children using formal childcare, those who experienced higher-quality relationships were better able to regulate their attention and emotions as they started school. Higher emotional regulation was also observed for children engaged in more activities in childcare. Beneficial effects were stable over time.

Section snippets

Methods

This study used data from the birth cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), a nationally representative cohort study that commenced in 2004.12 Details of the study design and sampling framework are available elsewhere.13 In brief, the sampling framework used 2-stage clustered sampling. The first stage selected Australian postcodes, and the second stage sampled children within these postcodes.13 Postcodes were selected at random and stratified by state/territory and

Results

Of the 1038 children spending ≥8 hours per week in childcare, 847 (81%) spent time in center-based care and 191 (18%) spent time in family day care (Table IV). The mean number of hours per week in childcare was 24.0 ± 11.9 hours (IQR, 15-31 hours). The majority of children lived in a 2-parent household (92.5% vs 7.5%), had a primary caregiver with less than a bachelor's degree (59.4% vs 40.6%), and had an annual household income of $41 549-$77 999 (41.4%).

Table V presents the associations

Discussion

After taking into account a wide range of confounders, carer ratings of a higher-quality relationship in childcare—that is, care characterized by warmth and predictability—remained associated with greater task attentiveness and emotional regulation in the early years of schooling. The quality of activities in childcare, including children spending more time with carers (singing, telling stories, and reading books), was associated with higher levels of emotional regulation, but not of task

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    This paper used confidential unit record files from LSAC. The LSAC project is conducted in partnership between the Commonwealth Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. A.G. is supported by a postgraduate award from Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Adelaide, and a supplementary scholarship award from Healthy Development Adelaide and Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation. J.L. is supported by an Australia Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (570120), which also supports A.S. and M.M. The findings and views in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to any of the funders. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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