The relationship between the amount of time children spend in child care and their healthy development during the toddler years

This study involved a regression analysis of the Early childhood Longitudinal Study---Birth Cohort to examine how the amount of time children spend in child care predicted their development at 24-months of age.Though the quantity of child care received at 9 months of age did not directly predict any of the three developmental outcomes, the effects of the quantity of child care were found to vary significantly by maternal depression. For children whose mothers were depressed when they were 9 months of age (as opposed to non-depressed), more hours of child care at 9 months led to higher scores on all three child development outcomes (cognitive/language abilities, child interpersonal engagement and sustained attention). For children whose mothers were not depressed, more hours of care lead to lower developmental scores. The effects of more hours of care also varied in a similar pattern by maternal education and family poverty status (but only for one of the three developmental outcomes) such that there were positive associations of more time in child care on child interpersonal engagement for higher risk groups (i.e. lower maternal education or families below poverty) and negative associations for lower risk groups.In turning to the effects of the quantity of child care received when children were 24-months of age, it was found that more hours of care had a significant and positive association with children's cognitive/language development but was not associated with either of the two behavioral outcomes. Though this main effect was found in both the Whole Sample and in the Sub-Sample in Child Care, it was modified in the Sub-Sample by an interaction effect with maternal depression when children were 24-months of age. Surprisingly, the interaction effect of maternal depression when children were 24 months was in the opposite direction from what was observed with maternal depression status when children were 9 months of age. Whereas at 9-months, more child care seemed to provide a buffering effect for children whose mothers were depressed, at 24-months, more child care seemed to have a harmful effect for children whose mothers were depressed.