Early Care Accreditation and School Readiness Skills of Low-Income Preschoolers

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - School Readiness/Childcare

Abstract

Given the developmental and school readiness benefits associated with participation in high-quality early learning programs compared to low-quality programs, especially for low-income populations (Burchinal, Campbell, Bryant, Wasik, & Ramey, 1997; NICHD ECCRN, 1996, 2003; Peisner-Feinberg & Burchinal, 1997; Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2001), it is important for families to easily identify high quality programs. One such identifier is accreditation. The general notion that accredited programs are of higher quality and will yield better child outcomes (compared to non-accredited) is theoretically supported in the literature (e.g., Lahti, Elicker, Zellman, & Fiene, 2015). However, the few studies seeking to empirically demonstrate accreditation’s association with child outcomes have produced mixed findings (Dinehart et al., 2012; Winterbottom & Piasta, 2015). The current study seeks to explore associations between accreditation and school readiness skills of low-income children at-risk for lower school readiness. We hypothesize that children who attend accredited centers will demonstrate higher school readiness skills compared to children attending non-accredited centers. Further, we hypothesize differential school readiness skills based on accreditation type given that accreditation agencies have varying standards emphasizing these skills.

Our study included 338 low-income, (< 185% federal poverty line) Black/African American (34%) and Hispanic/Latino (66%) children from 168 different center-based early education programs in Miami, Florida. Children were between 3.00 and 5.52 years old (M = 4.01, SD = .58) with 52% female. Participant demographic data are in Table 1. Of the 168 programs, 15% were accredited by NAEYC, 14% were accredited by APPLE, 14% were accredited by one of four other agencies. Program data are also presented in Table 1.

Program and family data were compiled by the early education oversight agency. Children were assessed within the first 45 days of the school year using the Ages of Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), second edition (Bricker & Squires, 1999). In the middle of the school year, children were administered a school readiness assessment, the Learning Accomplishment Profile, Diagnostic edition (LAP-D; Nehring et al., 1992), which assessed participants’ cognitive, language, and motor development, by a trained assessor in English or Spanish.

As displayed in Table 2, findings for accreditation status yielded three models with significant effects: (a) fine motor writing/copying (β = .369, p < .01), (b) language naming (β = .317, p < .01), and (c) cognitive matching (β = .373, p < .01). For all three models, children attending accredited programs scored higher in these areas compared to children attending unaccredited programs. Findings for differences between accreditation agencies yielded four models with significant effects such that children attending NAEYC-accredited programs demonstrated significantly higher skills compared to children attending unaccredited centers in fine motor manipulation (β = .378, p < .05), writing/copying (β = .465, p < .05), expressive language (β = .349, p < .05), and cognitive pattern matching (β = .508, p < .01) whereas children attending APPLE-accredited programs only scored significantly higher on fine motor (β = .365, p < .10). and writing/copying (β = .580, p < .01). Discussion of these differences will be provided.

Authors

• Danielle Turley, California State University - Stanislaus
  Presenting Author

• Louis Manfra, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author

• James A. Larsen, University of Tennessee - Knoxville
  Non-Presenting Author