High-quality early childcare and education (ECE) has demonstrated long-term associations with positive educational and life outcomes and can be particularly impactful for children from low-income backgrounds. This study extends the literature on the long-term associations between high-quality caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness and cognitive…

Much of child care research has focused on the effects of the quality of care in early childhood settings on children's school readiness skills. Although researchers increased the statistical rigor of their approaches over the past 15 years, researchers' ability to draw causal inferences has been limited because the studies are based on…

Intervention studies indicate that children's childcare experiences can be leveraged to support the development of executive functioning (EF). The role of more normative childcare experiences is less clear. Increasingly, theory and empirical work suggest that individual differences in children's physiological stress systems may be associated with…

Relations between early child care and adolescent functioning at the end of high school (EOHS; M age = 18.3 years) were examined in a prospective longitudinal study of 1,214 children. Controlling for extensive measures of family background, early child care was associated with academic standing and behavioral adjustment at the EOHS. More…

A longitudinal study of 80 toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners found that children who entered early in low quality care had the most difficulty with peers in preschool. Lives of parents who used low quality care were characterized by complexity and use of less appropriate socialization practices than those used by other parents. (RH)