Poster #183 - Early Risks and Comprehensive Childcare Profiles

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

National trends suggest an uptick in labor force participation among parents. Accordingly, parents must increasingly solicit out-of-home early care services. Strong scientific evidence suggests children’s early experiences are critical in shaping later school success (NICHD ECCRN & Duncan, 2003). Therefore, research focusing on the nature of these early out-of-home care experiences is needed. From a developmental-ecological perspective, children’s experiences in proximal contexts (e.g., childcare) can either enhance or thwart their developmental outcomes (Bronfenbrenner, 2005). Although evidence has shown that type, timing, and duration of childcare experience independently predict school readiness (Loeb et al., 2007), limited research has focused on concurrent examination of these factors. The purpose of this study was to utilize a comprehensive approach to (a) examine profiles of childcare experiences from birth to kindergarten entry, including type, timing, and duration of non-parental care, and (b) study the relations between early child and family characteristics and children’s involvement in different profiles of childcare.
Study participants were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth cohort (ECLS-B). The ECLS-B includes a nationally representative sample of approximately 10,600 children born in 2001 and followed at 9 months, 2 years, 4.5 years, and 5.5 years. Child and family characteristics included single/teenage motherhood, low maternal education, poverty, inadequate prenatal care, elevated depressive symptoms (“0=non-risk,” “1=risk,” Rouse et al., 2018). Mothers reported childcare type, duration, and timing of their children. Reading and math skills were assessed using measures developed by ECLS-B content experts. The 17-item Social emotional outcomes were rated by teachers. Based on prior research (Riser et al., 2018), we utilized four empirically derived dimensions: Prosocial Skills, Behavior Regulation, Approach to Learning, and Social Perspective Taking.
A Latent Profile Analysis was used to identify childcare profiles. Chi-squared analysis and ANOVA were used to test differences in demographic and family characteristics and child outcomes by profiles. To examine the unique associations between characteristics and childcare profiles, multinomial logistic regression was conducted. Absence of risk was used as the reference predictor and the Parent Care profile as the reference outcome. We applied the recommended weight (W31C0) to conduct all analyses (Snow et al., 2009).
Five profiles were identified: Parent Care; Nonrelative+Preschool; Preschool Only; Relative+Preschool; and Full-time Center. Significant differences in child and family characteristics were found between profiles (see Table 1), including children with married mothers and with mothers who had less than a high school education in Parent Care, fewer teenage mothers in the Relative+Preschool profile. Regarding the second research question (see Table 2), children exposed to poverty were less likely to be in the Parent Care profile than other profiles. Children of mothers receiving inadequate prenatal care and low birth weight children were less likely to be in the Relative+Preschool profile, whereas children born preterm were more likely in this profile. Children of depressed mothers were less likely to be in the Full-time Center profile than Parent Care. Our findings suggest that early child and family characteristics are significantly related to family choices for child care experiences and suggest fruitful areas for future research.

Authors

• Heather Rouse, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author

• Ji Young Choi, Iowa State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Seulki Ku, Iowa State University
  Non-Presenting Author