The Effects of Infant Day Care On Psychological Development

A longitudinal investigation was designed to assess the psychological effects of an experimentally conducted day care program on children aged 3.5 to 29 months. The subjects were Chinese and Caucasian children from working- and middle-class families who were cared for at a special group care center five days a week; the major control group consisted of children reared totally at home and matched with the experimental children in terms of ethnicity, social class, and sex. Data gathered during the last two assessments, at age 20 and 29 months, revealed little difference between the day care and home control children with respect to cognitive functioning, language, attachment, separation protest, and play tempo; the only simple effect of rearing involved behavior with unfamiliar peers. There was a provocative interaction among ethnicity, social class, and rearing: among working-class Chinese children, the day care experience facilitated cognitive development and reduced apprehension in unfamiliar situations; this effect did not occur among Caucasians In general, the home environment seemed more influential in sculpting each child's early development than were day care experiences.