Study: Early Child Care Linked To Increases In Vocabulary, Some Problem Behaviors In Fifth And Sixth Grades

From a recent study that appears in the March/April 2007 issue of Child Development (summary from Science Daily.com):

The most recent analysis of a long-term NIH-funded study found that children who received higher quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did children who received lower quality care.

The study authors also found that the more time children spent in center-based care before kindergarten, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report such problem behaviors as "gets in many fights," "disobedient at school," and "argues a lot."

However, the researchers cautioned that the increase in vocabulary and problem behaviors was small, and that parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development than was type, quantity, or quality, of child care.

Read the rest of the article at ScienceDaily.