Poster group
Details of individual items:
poster
TheHOME Inventory has been widely used in child development research as ameasure of the quality and quantity of stimulation and supportavailable to a child in the home environment. HOME has been used inhundreds of studies and its psychometric properties are reasonablywell known. As part of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, a versionof the HOME was constructed for assessing the quality of family childcare environments (CC-HOME). The forms of the HOME used for alternatecaregivers required some modifications to make the content moresuitable for non-maternal caregiving situations. To date, nopsychometric information has been developed for the child care versionsof the Inventory. The purpose of this presentation is to describe themeasure and offer information as to its reliability and validity.The family child care version of HOME for infants and toddlers iscomposed of 45 binary-choice items organized into six subscales:Caregiver Responsivity, Acceptance, Organization, Learning Materials,Caregiver Involvement, and Variety of Stimulation. The administrativeand scoring procedures, as well as the organization of items, aresimilar to those used in the comparable version of HOME used to assessfamily environments. A factor analysis, based on 475 cases collectedfrom the ten sites involved in the NICHD Study, revealed 3 largefactors: Responsivity/Involvement, Acceptance, and LearningEnvironment. Alphas for these three factor scales were computed as.65,.74, and .76 respectively. The alpha for the total scale was .82. Inter-rater agreement for the total scale was consistently above 90%.The primary means used to validate the CC-HOME was through an analysisof content. An assumption was made that children would benefit fromthe same kinds of experiences in family child care as they do inin-home care. Thus, most of the items in the CC-HOME are the same asthose found in the version of HOME used to assess the quality of familyenvironments. Additional information about the validity of CC-HOME wasobtained by correlating scores on the CC-HOME with other measures ofchild care quality. As part of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care,detailed observations were made in family child care arrangements overthe period of two days. The behavior of caregivers and children wereobserved and coded for 120 episodes of 30 seconds each over the periodof two days using the Observational Record of the CaregivingEnvironment (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1996). Correlations between CC-HOME scores and ORCE behavioral ratings rangedfrom low (about .20) to moderate (about .40) suggesting that CC-HOMEcaptures some of the same aspects of child care quality as domicro-analytic observational techniques.Findings suggest that the child care version of HOME is a reliable and valid means of assessing the quality of care children receive infamily child care settings.
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An environment rich in multi-racial representations can provide linkages tohome culture as well as provide all children opportunities to learn aboutthe American culture. By the age of two and three, children begin to developracial awareness. Human representations in the group care environments ofinfants and toddlers were analyzed for their ethnic and racial composition.The study was conducted in community-based infant/toddler care centersthroughout a Midwest United States medium sized city with a diverseracial/ethnic population, with a dual university/industrial economic baseand diverse SES. Visual displays and artwork on walls, floors, furniture andhanging from ceilings were rated for media, gender, race/ethnicity andaffect. Dolls, small dramatic play action figures, puppets and puzzles wererated for media, gender and race/ethnicity. Childrenâs book ratings includedauthor, publisher, publication year, main charactersâ gender andrace/ethnicity and supporting characterâs gender and race/ethnicity. Ineach of 25 infant/toddler care centers, all classrooms, sleeping areas,hallways and child-use areas such as gyms/large motor areas were examined,for a total of more than 100 areas. Four raters, of threeraces/ethnicities, participated. Interrater reliability for coding was .90or better. Demographic data on teachers and children included gender andrace/ethnicity. Photos of program children are the primary means of diverseracial representation in many centers. The majority of these photos aredisplayed at adult standing height, visible to an infant/toddler only whenheld by a standing adult. Across all categories of materials the mostpredominant minority representation is that of Blacks/African-Americans.Hispanics, Asians, Asian Indians, Pacific Islanders/NativeAmerican/Aboriginal, Mideastern/Arab and other minorities have fewrepresentations in visual displays. The primary visual display of a NativeAmerican in the infant/toddler care environment is a controversial localprofessional sports team mascot that has been described as 'degrading' bylocal tribal representatives. Dolls, small dramatic play action figures andpuppets have few minority racial/ethnic representations other thanBlack/African-American. The exception is found in church-related centerswith dolls, art, or storybook characters of Biblical figures that arehistorical Mideastern. In storybooks where the main character is white,minorities are most likely to be represented in crowd scenes such as zoos,parks or shopping malls. Main characters in the majority of books arewhite, even in centers serving primarily racial minority families. Invisual displays containing multiple racial groups, the depictions areusually of people in international traditional costume and Native Americansin tribal costume. For example, Dutch children are in wooden shoes, Eskimoshave fur hoods and African children are scantily dressed with headdresses.Despite conscientious effort by early childhood educators and curriculumguidelines by professional care associations, infant/toddler careenvironments primarily contain White race human representations. Manystereotypes of racial/ethnic group representations remain. Manyethnic/racial groups have no representation in play materials. In the newcentury the numbers of children of color in the United States will exceedthose of white children. It is crucial that young children be exposed toaccurate and positive models of the groups composing the American mosaic.
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In this poster, we will describe the social support of two types of infantcare providers, the similarities and differences in the support theyreceive, and relationships between the support they receive and the carethey provide. While infant care continues to be highly studied, and there isgrowing body of evidence regarding the important influence of quality ofcare on child development, little information is available about the thoseprovider variables that may influence the quality of care.Thirty-nine infant center providers and 23 infant family child careproviders from the Midwestern U.S. were interviewed about the social supportthey receive 'in caring for this particular infant.' Questions about socialsupport included listing the names of supporters, rating the helpfulness ofand satisfaction with support, specifying the types of support received(informational, emotional, etc.) and describing the ways the supporter wasrelated to the provider (e.g. relative, friend, co-worker, etc.).Trained observers completed the Attachment Q-set (Waters & Dean, 1985) aftereach of two observations of the infant-provider dyad in the child caresetting. [The same observer completed both Q-sets approximately one weekapart.] The data from the two completed Q-sets were combined to create oneattachment security score based on both observations. During the twoobservations, ratings of intensity of adult interaction with the infant(Howes & Smith, 1987) were also completed. These numbers were averaged tocreate a single score of adult interaction. During a separate observation,quality of the infants' care setting was rated using the Family child careRating Scale (Harms & Clifford, 1989) and Infant/Toddler Environment RatingScale (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1990). The average score was used in theseanalyses.Infants' family child care (M 6.83, sd 2.66) and center providers (M 6.15, sd 2.06) did not differ in the number of supporters they reported,nor in the number of friends or relatives providing support. As wasexpected, center providers identified significantly more co-workers in theirsupport network (t 8.68, p <.001). Center providers listed more personsproviding informational support (t3.27, p <.005) and fewer personsproviding economic support (t4.57, p <.001). Providers did not differ intheir ratings of helpfulness or satisfaction with support. Providers did notsignificantly differ in terms of infant-provider attachment security, adultinteraction or quality of care ratings.Number of supporters was significantly related to the average quality ofcare for both center providers (r .40, p <.05) and family child care homeproviders (r .45, p <.05). Number of supporters identified as co-workers,average helpfulness of, and average satisfaction with support were allsignificantly and positively related to quality of care for family childcare providers only. Relationships with attachment security and adultinteraction will also be discussed.
poster
Approximately half of all children under the age of three spend time everyweek in nonparental care. This number continues to grow, making childcareworkers an increasingly valuable source of information about youngchildren's development. Studies of inter-rater agreement between parentsand teachers have generally found that they do not view children similarly,perhaps due to differences in the characteristics of the setting and thedemands on the child.Infant childcare represents a diverse variety of settings, such as daycarecenters, in-home providers (e.g., grandmothers), and family daycares inwhich a small group of children is cared for in another person's home.Thus, settings vary greatly with regards to the level of structure, thedemographic characteristics of providers, and the number of peers andcaregivers. Given the differences between childcaresettings, wehypothesized that agreement between caregivers and parents would varyacross setting. This report is based on 101 families who were recruited from a larger birthcohort study of families of 12- to 36-month old children. The childrenwere 23.7 months in age (SD6.5), 50% were boys, 68% were Caucasian, and84% of parents had greater than a high school education. Parents wereinvited to participate if they used minimum of 15 hours per week ofchildcare, agreed to a home-based developmental evaluation and both parentand childcare provider were native English speakers. The families usedin-home providers (n36), family daycare (n32) and daycare centers (n33). There were no differences in child age, sex and ethnicity, as well asparent education across setting. Providers in different settings varied inlevel of formal education [c2(1,4)17.92, p<.001], childcare relatedtraining [c2(1,2)29.66, p<.001], and number of years of experience[c2(1,4)15.94, p<.01]. Center-based providers were more educated and weremore experienced. In-home providers were significantly older thancenter-based providers [F(2,89)6.14, p<.01] and spent more time each weekwith the target child [F(2,92)3.69, p<.05]. Providers at daycare centerscared for a greater number of children than did family daycare providers orin-home providers [F(2,92)51.99, p<.0001]. Using the Infant-Toddler Social & Emotional Assessment (ITSEA), a newadult-report questionnaire for children between 12 and 36 months of age,the agreement between parents and providers on four global domains(internalizing problems, externalizing problems, dysregulation andcompetence) was examined. Pairwise t-test between parent and providerratings generally indicated that parents report greater competence,dysregulation and internalizing symptoms than did providers but did notdiffer significantly in level of externalizing symptoms. A comparison ofparent-provider agreement across types of childcare settings revealed thatwhile there was significant agreement between parents and in-home providersacross all four global domains of child functioning (rs.34 to .52,p<.05), there was no significant agreement between parents and familydaycare providers (rs.03 to .27) and center-based providers (rs-.07 to.30). Moreover, agreement between parents and providers in in-homesettings were significantly higher than in daycare centers for competenceand dysregulation and higher than family daycare for externalizing problems(Fisher's z1.69 to 2.56, p<.05). It is possible that when childcareproviders view children in the same environment they develop more similarviews of the child. These findings provide some preliminary evidence thatchildren's behavior may be sensitive to context. In addition, they haveimplications for efforts to understand typical development andpsychopathology and highlight the importance of observational data andmultiple informants.
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Teachers' thought processes have been found to influence how they view theirteaching and how they interact with children (Clark & Peterson, 1986;Copeland, et al., 1994; Smith, 1997). Teachers' reasoning about children'smisbehaviors has been shown to influence their treatment of children(Scott-Little & Holloway 1992). This study investigates two constructstapping childcare teachers' thought processes (multidimensional thinking andattributions of control) and their relationship with quality of teachers'interactions with children. Furthermore, perception of the work environmentis investigated as a moderator. Multidimensionality assesses the degree to which teachers integrate multipleperspectives in understanding children. Teachers who link various sources ofinformation were found to value a child-centered approach to teaching(Copeland, et al., 1994). One might expect teachers who thinkmultidimensionally to be more likely to provide children withdevelopmentally appropriate care (Bredekamp, 1987). Attributions aboutcontrol and responsibility for failed caregiving outcomes looks at thedegree to which control is attributed to adults and to children. Bugental etal. (1989; 1984) found that mothers with low-self control and high-childcontrol are likely to be sensitized and react negatively to children'snegative behavior. A similar pattern with teachers might be expected.Perceptions of the work environment may moderate teachers' thought processesand the quality of their interactions with children. Childcare teachers'perception of their work environment has been found to influence theirintentions to leave (Manlove & Guzell, 1997). Overton (1985) posited thatlikely contingencies must be analyzed as they may moderate the expression offavorable thought processes. Sample. Data collection is currently ongoing. The sample size provided forthis abstract is based on teachers who completed two questionnaires (CODQand PAT). We will have complete data for 76 teachers by December 1999.Teachers were drawn from 11 childcare centers in two metropolitanstatistical areas in central Pennsylvania (N38). Only teachers working inclassrooms serving infants through age 3 are part of this study. Tables 1 &2 give demographics.Measures. IV's. All participants complete: Concepts of DevelopmentQuestionnaire (Sameroff & Feil, 1985) which taps multidimensionality; ParentAttribution Test (Bugental, et al., 1990); and, a modified version of theEarly Childhood Work Environment Survey (Jorde-Bloom, 1988). DV's. Teachersare observed on two measures assessing caregiving quality: CaregiverInteraction Scale (Arnett, 1989), a global measure of caregiving. Adult Playwith Children (Howes & Stewart, 1987), a 15-min time-sampling measurecapturing the level of teacher involvement with any child. Table 3 givesinter-rater reliabilities.Analytical design. Multidimensionality and attributions of control will beexamined separately. Hierarchical linear regression will be used to examinethe aggregate effect of teachers' thought processes on the quality of care;and, the effect of the interaction between teachers' thought processes andperceptions of the work environment on the quality of care. The moderatorhypothesis is supported if the interaction is significant (Baron & Kenny, 1986).Concluding remarks. In childcare, little is known about teacher-workdynamics. For this reason, the findings from this study have some directimplications for future research, especially in the areas of intervention,and policy issues in childcare.REFERENCESArnett, J. (1989). Caregivers in day-care centers: Does training matter?Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 10, 541-552.Baron, R. M. and Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variabledistinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, andstatistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,51(6), 1173-1182.Bredekamp, S. (1997). Developmentally appropriate practice: The earlychildhood teacher as decision-maker. National Association for the Educationof Young Children, Washington, D.C., 33-51.Bugental, D. B., Blue, J. & Cruzcosa, M. (1989). Perceived control overcaregiving outcomes: Implications for child abuse. Developmental Psychology,25(4), 532-539.Bugental, D. B., Blue, J., & Lewis, J. (1990). Caregiver beliefs anddysphoric affect directed to difficult children. Developmental Psychology,26(4), 631-638.Bugental, D. B. & Shennum, W. A. (1984). 'Difficult' children as elicitorsand targets of adult communication patterns: An attributional-behavioraltransactional analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in ChildDevelopment, 49(1). Cost, Quality & Child Outcomes Study Team - COST (1995). Cost, Quality, andChild Outcomes in Child Care Centers, Public Report, Second Edition. Denver:Economics Department, University of Colorado at Denver.Clark, C. M. & Peterson, P. L. (1986). Teachers' thought processes. Handbookof Research on Teaching. Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc.Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 155-159.Copeland,W. D. et al. (1994). Making meaning in classrooms: An investigationof cognitive processes in aspiring teachers, experienced teachers, and theirpeers. American Educational Research Journal, 31(1), 166-196.Howes, C. & Stewart, P. (1987). Child's play with adults, toys, and peers:An examination of family and child-care influences. DevelopmentalPsychology, 23(3), 423-430.Jorde-Bloom, P. (1988). A great place to work: Improving conditions forstaff in young children's programs.Manlove, E. E. & Guzell, J. R. (1997). Intention to leave, anticipatedreasons for leaving, and 12-month turnover of child care center staff. EarlyChildhood Research Quarterly, 12, 145-167.Overton, W. F. (1985). Scientific methodologies and thecompetence-moderator-performance issue. Moderators of competence: The JeanPiaget Symposium Series. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Sameroff, A. J. & Feil, L. A. (1985). Parental concepts of development. InI. Sigel (Ed.), Parental Belief Systems. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Scott-Little, M. C. & Holloway, S. D. (1992). Child care providers'reasoning about misbehaviors: Relation to classroom control strategies andprofessional training. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 7, 595-606.Smith, K. E. (1997). Student teachers' beliefs about developmentallyappropriate practice: Pattern, stability, and the influence of locus ofcontrol. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 221-243.
poster
Over the past few years, there has been an increased interest in children'sreadiness to learn at school entry, and how it impacts on the need forpolicy changes. It is now well established that the crucial stages inbrain development occur in the first three to five years of life, and thatearly care and stimulation during that period has a major influence onchildren's abilities to learn at school. Child behaviour on their entranceto formal education is a result of both genetic makeup and the environmentin which they grow. Positive changes in children's environment in infancyand pre-school years will improve their chances to succeed in school, andlater in life. If we can devise a simple and feasible way to testchildren's readiness to learn at school at the entry point, we can directprograms to populations in need when intervention is relatively cheap andrelatively easy.The following have been identified as directly relevant to school success:physical health and well-being; social competence; emotional maturity;language and cognitive development; and general knowledge and communicationskills.Community demand has driven the development of a readiness to learn outcomemeasure to validate early intervention programs, and to identify areasneeding intervention. This measure is completed by teachers at thekindergarten level (4-5 year-olds) for use at the group level. It includesall of the domains listed above. The measure has been pilot-tested forreliability and validity. In this presentation the issue of the impact ofearly day care on children's readiness to learn at school is examined.The test was carried out in five settings with over 12,000 children intotal: two in cities of more than 4 mln people, one in a large city ofabout 1 mln people, one in a small city, and one in a rural setting.Teachers in Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten completed the test.The results in the five domains were compared for children who had attendedday care earlier in life with those who had not. Differences between thetwo groups emerged in all except the small city setting. However, while inall cases children who attended day care scored better in physical health,language and communication domains, in the two large city settings, theyalso scored worse in the social and emotional domain. In the ruralsetting, children who attended day care programs scored significantlybetter in all five domains.This analysis suggests that effects of early child care are not universalin all domains. In differentiating between settings, our measure may behelpful for local communities in mobilisation of efforts to improveparticular aspects of day care programming for very young children.