Cognitive Development Theory

Review

Prior Research and Theory
Research on whether childcare experiences affect children’s early language and cognitive development has also become increasingly common in the last 50 years. Past studies have focused on the differences found amongst different childcare settings in quality of care. Studying the impact of high or low quality conditions on cognitive development is important, and emphasis on how different aspects of childcare could be altered to better aid children may lead to improvements in service. In the past, large and economically diverse studies have revealed a significant association between higher childcare quality and cognitive development. Although many studies expressed the quality of child care as an average over
The second was to find specific differences in receptive vocabulary, numeracy skills, and school readiness in four years based on disparities in quality of childcare. When trajectories reflecting higher quality of childcare over time were compared to those trajectories reflecting a lower quality of care over time, a high and ascending trajectory of Teaching and Interaction had a positive association with receptive vocabulary, numeracy skills, and school readiness; this contrasted with Provision for Learning, whose trajectory had no independent influence on cognitive outcomes. The effect sizes for the associations studied were moderate, consistent with previous studies that revealed a moderate and positive effect of high quality childcare on children’s’ cognitive development. Notable was the fact that a substantial fraction of children in the study were exposed to high and ascending levels of quality of Teaching Interactions (59%), with a smaller group (41%) exposed to low and stable quality. This contrasted with the fact that in Provision for Learning, only 24.3% of children were exposed to high and stable quality while the majority (75.7%) was exposed to lower quality. The mean childcare quality observed in the study was lower in center-based settings than it was in family-based
250 families successfully completed the study, and such a large sample size controls for many confounding variables as it reflects a wide demographic range in is a subject. Another strength is that this study is longitudinal, and longitudinal studies have more power than cross-sectional studies as they track the same people over time. This means that the cultural differences between generations are less likely to confound and skew results in a longitudinal study than they would in a cross-sectional study.
A weakness of this study is the fact that it is correlational, not experimental. This correlational design means that inferences on causality may not be performed, even considering the wide range of covariates accounted for in the study design. Hidden variables might explain associations seen in the data.
Next Steps
A clear need for further research is the design of an experimental study to determine causality between quality of childcare and cognitive development. Performing a controlled experiment to test specific effects of variation in childcare quality on children’s academic skills will allow for more concrete conclusions to be made on which aspects of childcare lead to increased development in