Environmental Quality, Emotional Support, and Opportunities for Learning in Infant/Toddler Care

• In Event: Ensuring Quality Care for Infants/Toddlers: Early Language Development and Program Characteristics and Opportunities

Abstract

Increasing empirical evidence stresses the importance of the physical and social environment in facilitating the development of young infants and shows how early experiences set a cascade of developmental processes in motion leading to long-term effects on development in multiple domains (e.g., Adolph & Hoch, 2019; Libertus & Violi, 2016). This evidence suggests that infants develop through active exploration of their environment (e.g., Hoch et al., 2019, Oudgenoeg-Paz & Mulder, 2021). Besides the physical environment, the social environment plays an important role as infants learn about the world through a combination of interactive play and exploration and back-and-forth communicative exchanges with caregivers (e.g., Yu & Smith, 2012, West & Iverson, 2017). Moreover, also following the bio-ecological model of development and attachment theory, caregivers play a key role in establishing nurturing, affectionate, and predictable relations with children and functioning as a secure base to support their wellbeing and development (see Shonkoff & Philips, 2000). Despite its importance for children’s developmental outcomes, the quality of infant care as an important component of the early social and physical environment is far less studied than quality in preschool and beyond (e.g., Bratch-Hines et al., 2020). Moreover, quality in most studies has focused on the quality of interactions and less on the content of these interactions (e.g., Burchinal, 2018). The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to study environmental and process quality in infant daycare using observations and teacher-reports about the provision of developmentally stimulating play, exploration, and language activities; and (2) to investigate relations between structural characteristics and quality. We focus specifically on environmental and process qualities that are linked to early vocabulary growth.
A nationally representative sample of 62 classrooms providing care to infants (n=26 infant classrooms, n=36 infant-toddler classrooms) from the annual national Dutch ECEC quality monitoring study was used. Environmental quality was measured with the ITERS-R, process quality was assessed with the CLASS Infant, and structured interviews were conducted with 105 caregivers to collect information on structural quality characteristics, support for play and exploration, and provision of language activities. Based on these measures, the average group size was 10.36 (SD 2.47) with a ratio of 4.60 children per adult (SD 0.94); on average classrooms served 17% children of low SES backgrounds (SD 26) and 27% children with a migration background (SD 28).
Results showed infant classrooms to provide mid-to high environmental quality, mid-to-high emotional support, and relatively low support for language stimulation, with the latter showing high variability. More work experience and higher engagement in professional development activities positively predicted environmental quality (R2 =.18), and a higher percentage of infants in the classroom, higher educational qualifications, and teachers working more hours per week positively predicted process quality (R2 =.33). However, having more infants in the classroom was negatively related to teacher-reported stimulation of language and exploration (R2 =.29). The findings demonstrate that opportunities for advancing infants’ language development can be improved and highlight the importance of teachers’ working conditions to the quality of these programs.

Author

• Pauline Slot, Universiteit Utrecht
  Presenting Author