Early Childcare, Executive Functioning, and the Moderating Role of Early Stress Physiology
Early Childcare, Executive Functioning, and the Moderating Role of Early Stress Physiology
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DOI：
10.1037/a0034700
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发表时间：
2014-04-01
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Granger, Douglas A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berry, Daniel;Blair, Clancy;Granger, Douglas A.
干预研究表明，儿童的育儿经历可以支持执行功能（EF）的发展。更规范的育儿经历的作用还不太清楚。越来越多的理论和实证研究表明，儿童生理应激系统的个体差异可能与他们体验这些早期环境的方式有意义的差异有关。我们利用以低收入农村家庭为主的大量人口样本的数据，测试了儿童前3年的托儿经历——数量、质量和类型——对未来EF的预测程度。此外，我们还研究了这些影响是否随着婴幼儿期基础皮质醇水平的变化而变化——这是下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴应激生理学的一个指标。我们的研究结果显示，无论数量或类型如何，高质量的护理预测48个月时更有效的EF。这种关系并没有随着儿童早期皮质醇水平的变化而变化。每周参加更多的护理时间也与EF有关；然而，与理论一致的是，花更多的时间在儿童保育和更积极的EF之间的正相关仅适用于7或24个月大的基础皮质醇水平较低的儿童。参加以中心为基础的护理与EF无关。
Intervention studies indicate that children's childcare experiences can be leveraged to support the development of executive functioning (EF). The role of more normative childcare experiences is less clear. Increasingly, theory and empirical work suggest that individual differences in children's physiological stress systems may be associated with meaningful differences in the way they experience these early environments. Using data from a large population-based sample of predominantly low-income rural families, we tested the degree to which children's childcare experiences-quantity, quality, and type-in the first 3 years of life predicted emerging EF. Moreover, we examined whether these effects varied as a function of children's basal cortisol levels in infancy and toddlerhood-an indicator of hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis stress physiology. Our results showed that higher quality care predicted more effective EF at 48 months, irrespective of quantity or type. This relation did not vary as a function of children's early cortisol levels. Attending greater hours of care per week was also related to EF; however-consistent with theory-the positive association between spending more time in childcare and more positive EF extended only to children with low levels of basal cortisol at 7 or 24 months of age. Attending center-based care was unassociated with EF.