Andres Ramirez
Rough Draft
SCORE Research Essay
Mrs. Krause
Exploration
through Childcare
I. Good quality child-care is proven to
have a great impact on a child’s well-being. By the time young children learn
to walk and talk they go off to preschool or a daycare. Current research has
shown that the early ages between 1 and 5 are the most sensitive for brain
development. Over 90% of brain growth is said to occur during this period. The
people who help care for the offspring’s child are also those who help shape their
minds. The children that attend childcare are given a head start on future
schoolwork. They are introduced to the very basics of math, reading and
language which will enable them to be ready by the time they start elementary
school. Aside from the development benefit from childcare, quality childcare
that is offered allows children to be with other people and not their parents.
Most children will become more used to being away from a parent. In other
words, there will be less separation anxiety by the time the child starts their
next level of education.
While
quality childcare greatly benefits both the growth of a child, the parents are
unaware that childcare has disadvantages. The following problems include
intellectual focus, stress levels, parent-child-relationships, illness and
meaningless activities. Most childcare centers rely too much on intellectual
development. Although it can be a great benefit to children, a high focus on it
can be harmful. There are studies that show unconvincing evidence lasting
benefits of early education at an early age. More studies show that children
that spend more time in childcare exhibit unruly behavior which comes from them
being separated by their parents. Even though this separation prepares the
child for their future education it could actually have a negative impact. Kids
in daycare may not spend sufficient time with their parents in order to bond
properly with them. As a result, this will affect the child’s ability to form
strong relationships with other people later on in life. Despite the negative
aspects of childcare, children need some sort of environment that would benefit
their well-being. The quality of child care is essential to a child’s early
stage of growing up. It is important for them so that they acquire the
necessary developmental skills that they will need to have later on in their
lives.
In addition to the benefits from high quality child care,
children that are able to experience it first-hand score higher in measures of
cognitive achievement. According to studies taken from the NICHD, repeatedly
reported higher quality care resulted in high scores of math, memory, and
vocabulary skills. Children that took part in this comprehensive case study
were observed and followed from birth to the third grade. The study looked at
the interaction between child characteristics, the home environment and
child-care settings to help explain how the children developed over time.
Caregivers with higher levels of education and who worked in settings with fewer
were more sensitive and responsive to children and provided a more stimulating
environment. When care environments were
more stimulating and well organized, children developed vocabularies, more
advanced attention and memory skills and got along better with peers(1). By the
time children entered their preschool years, children with more hours in center
care were displayed to having more advanced language and cognitive skills
although caregivers also reported somewhat more behavior problems among
children who had more hours in center-based care.
Within the United States there have been numerous
studies. However, not all agree with each other regarding the outcomes. There
are many reports that say that the type of childcare provides positive outcomes
while there are others that are contradicting. According to a report taken from
the University of New Hampshire, it said that daycare does not have negative
effects but that quality day care does produce positive effects. However those
results change over time. To go along with this children that attend day care
come from various backgrounds. A researcher only known by the name of Lamb noted
that “High quality care from infancy clearly has a positive effect on
children’s intellectual, cognitive and verbal development when they would
experience impoverished and stimulating home environments”. This suggests that
the quality of child care does not make any significant strides during the
development stage for everyone. The people that would be benefited the most
would be kids coming from disadvantaged families. The statistics that showed
the number of children that developed cognitively did not come from the type of
care but from their home settings. These findings reveal that children coming
from disadvantaged families are given the chance to advance their skills in a
place where they were never able to do so before.
Reports from the Institute of Education in England show
that reading, math and language increased in proportion to the number of months
they spent in pre-school. Between the ages of 3 to 7, children were tested on
four cognitive tests. By the time they turned 7 they were test again in order
to see if there is improvement or not. During stage 1(3-7) has established that
an early start to preschool is related to better intellectual development in
children. By the end stage 1, researchers found that the amount of academic
skills accumulated during this process was weak by the age of 7(2). However,
upon entering primary school there was evidence that the children were able to
apply what they had learned from pre-school into their school work.
It is said that children who attend pre-school or a
nursery are less likely to have special education when they enter their first
year of school. According to Children with
Special Educational Needs: an analysis, there are various reasons why young
people have special needs. These include: speech, language, social, behavioral,
learning etc. This continuing study in childcare has found pre-school is
particularly beneficial to children who were at a disadvantage. EPPE showed
that one in three children were “at risk” of developing learning disabilities
by the time they started pre-school. Children that were classified as being “at
risk” were mainly because they did not attend pre-school. This finding suggests
that attending pre-school reduces the chance of having some sort of special
education in the primary.
A review from the Day Care Trust states that children are
enabled to develop their social skills when they are in the presence of other
kids. All in all every childcare setting, whether if it’s at home or center
based is high quality. In many regions, there are minimum standards outlined by
its government known as “regulable features”. These features include the adult-to-child
ratio, group size, and the child care provider’s training. In Canada for
example, child care centers or family child care settings that have met these
minimum requirements are known as “regulated”. Children in child care centers
that have met these standards tended to have better outcomes than children in
centers that met fewer standards or none at all. In other words, the more
standards a child care setting meets, the more positive the caregiving. To sum
this all up, regulated or licensed child care centers provide better quality
child care than centers or home daycares that do not meet such standards.
Another
finding regarding this finding was how much influence the teachers or
caregivers provided to the children they looked after. Besides the
environmental setting of where children were placed, the “teacher’s positive
caregiving was linked to high quality care”. In other words the teacher’s
positive physical and verbal contact with children allowed for further growth
and development. Teachers or caregivers that played, sang songs, read books and
diffused negative interactions. Of all of these factors, the language used by
the caregiver such as making interesting comments in response to what children
say, asking questions, responding to vocalizations was the most important
factor that predicted children’s cognitive and language outcomes.
With
regards to the staff, there should be some on board who can reflect the racial
and ethnic backgrounds of children. These kinds of teachers are considered
essential role models which would provide a better cultural understanding of
kids and families. Most children whose primary language is not English would be
able to communicate with someone of a similar background. These are one of the
reasons why high quality care is significant for other in some cases.
Even
though this kind of social interaction is limited due to the exposition to
various elemental childcare types, there have been studies that have been
completely different from each other. According to the NICHM, more than 30
percent of kids received a fair amount of “positive care” during the first 3
years of life. That shows that quality care has its advantage because kids that
were in poor quality care, which of whom rarely received any attention
accounted for a very small percent. The percentage of how much positive
childcare kids received depended on the number of kids in a classroom. A very small percentage of children received
9 percent of a lot of positive childcare given to them. So this study shows how
well high quality childcare has helped develop children’s growth.
Childcare
services have not been the only tool that has contributed in the development of
children. Researchers have also delved into the child’s upbringing. The most
important factor that was included and considered the top priority in this
study was the mother-child interactions. It concluded that the more cheerful,
attentive, sensitive, and responsive that the mother was, the better the
outcome. In general, mothers that were educated, married; economically
advantaged (income); did not smoke; nor consume drugs or alcohol had a great
impact on their kids. Another important factor in predicting the child’s social
and cognitive development was the quality of the family environment. Families
that really interacted with their children
Children
that were in childcare situated in the safety of their homes were less likely
to get sick. On the other hand, children placed in the child care setting
(non-maternal) were found more likely to catch an upper respiratory infection
and stomach illness. Children that were placed under large group care were more
prone to developing illness than children within smaller group settings.
However, children within a larger group, whom were 3 years of ages, were less
likely to contract any sort of common illness between the ages of 4½ and 5. The
main reasons for children getting sick depended on the amount of kids were at
the center. Day care is an “ideal environment for the spread of disease among
children”, because of the fact that children move about and interact with
other. Children below the age of 5 means that their personal hygiene is less
than ideal, their ability to control their bodily secretions and excretions is
poor, and their immune systems are not yet fully developed. According to this
finding sickness is a constant problem that is found in any kind of childcare.
In
today’s economic situation, the financial means of supporting childcare
services is at the bottom of the country’s budget. Childcare has a significant
impact on the businesses of the employers. Making a childcare center to be the
“best ever”, make a challenge for the service to hire qualified staff for work.
Even the most valuable employees have often transferred, quit or have taken an
excessive amount of day offs because of the nature of their jobs or low pay. As
a result this, there has been an increase in much needed support, some
businesses have been forced to close. This will obviously not help children at
all at the start of their lives and neither for their parents also.
Childcare
case studies reveal the actual situations of kids who were observed from their
early years. They were measured on how much their brains developed until they
got older and entered their years of school. A British case study followed the
life of a boy named Lucas. From the age of four Lucas had already been learning
to speak normally as well as using that to communicate with his parents. Since
he was young he was developing this curiosity for learning. Whenever he saw books
he had this inclination to ask someone around to read it to him. In addition to
his development, he gained awareness of how to count by playing chutes and
ladders. Another instance that showed his desire to learned was when after he
was done playing the game would try to put all the pieces back in its box. He
got very frustrated when he smashed the game pieces together. After he had gotten
the two game pieces put together, he suddenly tore the corners of them.
However, when somebody stepped in and helped him put everything back in his
box, he began thinking about other ways of how to fix it. The next time he
played the game he suggested taping it together.
In
addition to his cognitive learning, Lucas was also improving his social
abilities at the same time. From his infancy up to being a toddler he had shown
a wide variety of emotions when he was in the presence of people. As a result,
he established a permanent relation with his mother which is important because
they need to have the time to bond with their own children. By this time Lucas
was seen as a child “who always needed his mother”. From both points of view
this is negative and positive at the same time. Even though Lucas will suffer
from separation anxiety by the time he go goes off to day care, he demonstrates
that he is comfortable around people that he knows well and trusts. Following
this achievement, Lucas was able to make a successful transition from
toddlerhood to preschool.
On
the other hand, there are negative qualities about Lucas’ behavior. The way
that it was seen, Lucas got very angry and frustrated for unknown reasons. He
sometimes reacted violently towards his mother; throwing objects; yelling mean
things and making cruel taunts at her such as “I hope you get hurt”. This not
only happened with his mother but with other children he came across. Obviously
that can turn into a major problem by the time he starts school unless he ages
and learns more words to be used in his vocabulary. On the lucky part, Lucas
did see some improvement in himself later on. Despite that he was recorded to
being a happy and outgoing young boy by the time he reached kindergarten.
In
addition to the child development study on Lucas, a girl named Hannah was also
observed from birth. However, unlike Lucas, Hannah grew up to be a very
talkative at an early much before Lucas did before the age of 4. Hannah’s
teachers noticed that she loved to talk and that she learned a lot of words in
just a short amount of time. According to her parents, because she spoke so
much she had trouble pronouncing her d’s and b’s. As a result she had to attend
speech and language therapy. However, she rapidly improved her vocabulary going
there. Whenever she got frustrated she would start crying or screaming. Most of
the time she was reminded to talk to her friends and explain to them what was
wrong. For children at her age level, it is very important for them to
communicate with their peers and resolve any kind of tension.
On
the cognitive level, Hannah was preceding exactly experts say 4 year olds are
supposed to act. To serve as examples, during class Hannah would be able to
follow instructions given to her by her teacher. Whenever Hannah was working
independently on a project or an activity, she occasionally would ask for
assistance, but regardless she was be able to complete it swiftly and without
getting distracted. However, most of the time she would still continue working
on a project while the other kids were finished. Usually most kids her age
would rush through their work just to get it done. Every time she strived to
make it her best work.
According
to Feldman, the expert researcher observing Hannah, noted her as being the
“most advanced for her age”. She enjoyed counting things. She had the ability
to count up to 50 which only few 4 year olds can do. She learned the primary
colors in Spanish as well as the numbers. Whenever she was read to, she always
wanted to know the meaning of a word she did not know. For that she showed a
great interest in reading. That shows how much she improved because she even
said that “I want to learn to read some day”.
The
quality of child-care is absolutely essential to a child’s development.
Child-care acts as a preparation center for younger children prior to entering
the school and beyond. With this, case studies unanimously prove that child
care has positive affects for children. The benefits of high-quality care have
proven. The quality of the environments that children are placed in, and the
expertise of the people caring for them, can influence their futures.
