Background: Child-care services during early childhood provide opportunities for social interactions that may facilitate children's learning of acceptable social behaviors. Furthermore, they may reduce exposure to family adversity for some children. The aim of this study was to determine whether intensity of exposure to child-care services prior to age 5 years has a beneficial effect on disruptive behavior problems during adolescence, and whether the effect is more pronounced for children from low socioeconomic families. Methods: N = 1,588 participants from the Qu ebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development were assessed 14 times from 5 months to 17 years. Intensity of child-care exposure was measured from 5 months to 5 years of age. Main outcomes were self-reported physical aggression and opposition from age 12 to 17 years. Family socioeconomic status (SES) was measured at 5 months. Factors explaining differences in child-care use were controlled using propensity score weights (PSW). Results: Children exposed to moderate-intensity child-care services (part-time child-care services before 1½ years and full time afterward) reported lower levels of physical aggression (d = À.11, p = .056) and opposition (d = À.14, p = .029) during adolescence compared to children exposed to low-intensity child-care services. A significant child care by SES interaction (p = .017) for physical aggression indicated that the moderate-intensity child-care effect was specific to children from low SES families (d = À.36, p = .002). No interaction with socioeconomic status was found for opposition. Conclusions: Moderate-intensity child-care services from infancy to school entry may prevent disruptive behavior during adolescence, especially for disadvantaged children.Perinatal child characteristics based on hospital records. Low birth weight (<2,500 g), small birth length and small head circumference at birth (<10th percentile), intrauterine growth retardation (<5th percentile, 5th-10th percentile,• Early childhood child care may reduce negative impacts of family adversity on disruptive behavior during adolescence.• There is evidence of a protective effect of early childhood child care for behavioral problems in early/middle childhood, but evidence of long-term effects is lacking.• We found that exposure to child care during early childhood was associated with a reduction of physical aggression and opposition during adolescence.• For physical aggression, the effect was specific to children from low socioeconomic status families.
Using the ERP method, we examined the processing operations elicited by stimuli that appear within the same temporal attention window. Forty subjects searched for letter targets among digit distractors displayed in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). ERPs were examined under conditions where a single target was embedded among distractors and compared to those recorded when two consecutive targets were embedded among distractors. Standard and independent component analyses revealed two temporally and topographically distinct ERP responses, a midfrontal P3a component peaking at about 300 ms followed by a midparietal P3b component peaking at about 450 ms. With minimal latency variations, the frontal P3a was amplified when elicited by two consecutive targets relative to a single target. The parietal P3b response was also amplified when elicited by two consecutive targets compared to a single target but, in contrast to P3a, it was also associated with a substantially longer time course. These results provide evidence for the involvement of frontal brain regions in the close-to-concurrent selection of two consecutive targets displayed in RSVP, and of posterior brain regions in the serial encoding of targets in visual working memory. The present findings are discussed in relation to current models of temporal gating of attention and the attentional blink effect.
Objective: Together with family factors, early care and education (ECE) services were shown to improve school readiness in kindergarten. However, it is not clear whether better school readiness at age 6 years translates into higher rates of high school graduation years later. Our objective was therefore to investigate the long-term associations between the use of ECE and high school graduation while considering the sex of the child and the socioeconomic status of the parents as moderators. Methods: Participants were children from the Quebec Longitudinal Study on Child Development (QLSCD) born in 1997 to 1998 (N 5 2001). Intensity and type of ECE exposure were measured from age 5 months to 5 years. Administrative records were used to determine whether students had obtained a high school diploma by age 20 years. Factors explaining differences in the profiles of ECE users were controlled using propensity score weights. Results: Twenty-two percent of students did not have a high school diploma by age 20 years. Compared with children never exposed to center-based care, those exposed early (i.e., before toddlerhood) had better odds of graduating from high school (odds ratio 5 1.49) after controlling for confounding factors. Late exposure to center-based care was not related to high school graduation rates. Conclusion: Exposure to regulated and center-based ECE on a regular basis from toddlerhood to school entry was associated with higher rates of high school graduation. Regulated center-based ECE at the population level may improve rates of high school graduation.
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