No abstract

Growing evidence has linked center-based early care and education settings to improvements in children's cognitive skills. Additional research is needed to more carefully delineate when and for whom these associations are most pronounced. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (N <= 6,350;Flanagan & West, 2004), this study examined whether the beneficial effects of center-based care settings for children's cognitive skills at age 5 differ by the age at which children experience these settings and for subgroups based on household income, parental education, and quality of the home leaming environment. The results suggest that center-based preschool was supportive of the math and reading skills development of the sample as a whole. However, both center-and home-based care for 2-year-olds as well as 4-year-olds were beneficial for children from lower income, less educated, and less enriching family contexts, helping to diminish the cognitive skills gap between more and less advantaged children.

No abstract

Prior research has unearthed a link between early education and care (EEC) experiences and worse behavioral functioning for children, yet the research has not clearly delineated whether this link is due to early entry into care (timing), extensive hours of care (extent), or use of center-based care (type). Using a nationally representative sample of children followed from infancy through kindergarten (N ≈ 6,000), we assessed links between EEC timing, extent, and type, and children's kindergarten functioning. Both center-based and full-time preschool predicted heightened behavior problems and more limited learning behaviors in kindergarten, with care type and extent functioning additively. EEC during infancy and toddlerhood showed limited independent links with children's later functioning, but it exacerbated negative associations between preschool and children's kindergarten behaviors.

Rural and suburban children account for the majority of poor children in the United States. Yet, most research examining poverty's associations with child development is focused on urban samples. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (N ≈ 6,600), this study examines whether the form and magnitude of income's relationship with early achievement differ across the urban-rural continuum. Results suggest that there are urbanicity-related differences in the functional form of the association between income and early achievement, with nonlinear associations in urban and suburban areas and a linear relationship in rural areas. The magnitude of the association between income and early reading and math skills also differs across the urban-rural continuum, such that income increases are related to the greatest improvements in early academic skills in large urban areas and only slight improvements in rural areas.