Type of childcare affects child's mental development - studies

Working mothers who rely on their family, friends or other informal childcare providers to look after their children during working hours may, in doing so, negatively influence their child's mental development, new study findings suggest.

The negative effect of a mother's reduced contact time with her child may be offset, however, by enrolling the child in pre-school or some other type of formal centre-based care instead.

Prof. Raquel Bernal of Northwestern University of Chicago, Illinois, who co-authored the study with Prof. Micheal Keane of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, was quoted as saying: "Separation from the mother can be detrimental for children, but mothers can partially offset this by choosing the appropriate type of daycare."

The study findings, which were presented last month during the 2005 World Congress of the Econometric Society, hosted by the University College London, showed that overall, the mother's choice of childcare during the child's first year of life did not seem to affect the child's later cognitive performance. However, achievement scores among children placed in informal day care after their first year of life were 3.5 per cent lower than they would have been if placed in their mother's care or in some type of formal childcare.

Higher achievement scores for children in formal childcare may be due to a number of reasons. Workers at formal childcare institutions may be better trained than relatives or other informal childcare providers; formal childcare environments may provide more organisations and discipline, more educational activity, and more stimulation for the child as he or she interacts with other children.

Another study conducted by Paul Gregg, Elizabeth Washbrook, Carol Propper and Simon Burgess, published earlier this year in The Economic Journal, indicated that full-time employment in the first 18 months after birth by mothers who predominantly use informal substitute care from relatives or friends leads to poorer cognitive outcomes.

While the study made reference to a number of US-based studies that often suggest that adverse effects result when mothers return to work early after their child's birth and return full-time, it suggested that the use of paid childcare, including child minders, protects children from adverse effects.

These results highlight the interdependence between the quality of parental care and the quality of non-parental care in determining the overall impact of maternal employment. Whether a child is disadvantaged by maternal employment depends on the quality of care the child receives relative to that which would be provided by the mother.

Mothers' employment may have impacts along other dimensions such as the behavioural and socio-emotional, both in childhood and later in life.

The study suggests that policies that encourage the adoption of flexible and part-time working practices, and also that enable mothers to remain at home for a longer period after birth, will minimise the negative effects of maternal employment.

In Malta, nearly 90 per cent of Year 1 pupils who had attended pre-school appeared to perform better in school that those who did not, a study entitled The National Mathematics Survey of Year 1 Pupils, published by the Education Division's Department of Planning and Development, found out.

The study, carried out by a project team - Sharon Richard, Dr Dougal Hutchison and Rowena Grech, led by Charles Mifsud, head of the Literacy Unit at the University of Malta - was conducted among Year 1 pupils attending state, Church and private schools.

Focusing on mathematical skills, the study showed that the longer the time a child attended pre-school (nurseries and kindergartens), the better he/she fared later on.

Dr Mifsud said the benefits of pre-school extended beyond academic practice, because apart from preparing students for the demands of formal education, pre-school provided children with their first social experiences. The provision of quality programmes at this stage should be strengthened, the study suggested.

The study also showed that in Malta, "it is almost as if there had been a voluntary lowering of pre-schooling." Out of 4,384 students (93 per cent) attending the primary 101 schools, 3,846 students had attended pre-school for two years, 267 students for one year and 184 for three years.