Child Care Quality and School Readiness: The Role of Child-Level Vulnerability

描述（由申请人提供）：多年研究计划包括三个独立的研究，旨在调查儿童保育质量对环境和生物脆弱儿童的发展影响，以便为旨在提高入学准备的早期保育和教育（ECE）政策和干预措施的目标提供信息。第一项研究探讨了联邦儿童保育补贴计划是否超出了其支持父母就业的主要目标，通过将低收入儿童转移到更高质量的护理轨道上来促进他们的发展。联邦儿童保育补贴计划是联邦政府对欧洲经委会最全面的投资，也是从出生到3岁儿童可获得的最大的公共早期护理计划。第二项研究考虑了另外两个基于生物学的风险因素——消极气质和特殊需要状态——在解释高质量的早期护理对认知和社会情感发展的影响时所起的作用。第三项研究结合了前两项研究的内容，探讨高质量的早期护理对那些因贫穷而在环境上易受伤害的儿童的影响，是否取决于这些儿童是否在生理上也易受伤害，因为他们有消极的性格或被诊断出有特殊需要。数据将从三个数据集中提取：为了解决第一个和第三个问题，将使用最新的、具有全国代表性的幼儿纵向研究-出生队列（ECLS-B）。ECLS-B收集了来自家长、儿童保育提供者和幼儿园教师的广泛信息，以及对儿童的直接评估和对多个时间点儿童保育质量的观察。为了解决第二个问题，将使用儿童保育和气质随时间研究（CCTOTS）和俄克拉何马州塔尔萨学前教育项目（“塔尔萨”研究）的评估数据。CCTOTS是一项纵向研究，旨在评估儿童保育经历对婴儿期具有消极反应性和积极反应性气质的儿童发展的影响，因此包含了高度可靠的气质和儿童保育质量测量。塔尔萨研究的独特之处在于，它包含了高质量的公共学前教育和学前教育项目中注册儿童的高保真管理数据，以及直接的儿童评估数据和来自家长调查的家庭背景信息。OLS回归以及旨在减少选择偏差威胁的计量经济学技术，如倾向得分匹配和回归不连续设计，将用于ECLS-B和Tulsa数据集。为了利用CCTOTS数据中对儿童和儿童保育环境的重复观察，将使用OLS回归和潜在增长曲线分析。拟议研究的结果将为支持低收入儿童、因生理原因而处于不利地位的儿童和因环境和生物脆弱性而处于双重不利地位的儿童的入学准备工作提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The multi-year research plan includes three separate studies that aim to investigate the developmental effects of child care quality for environmentally and biologically vulnerable children in order to inform the targeting of early care and education (ECE) policies and interventions designed to increase school readiness. The first study explores whether the federal child care subsidy program, which is the federal government's most comprehensive investment in ECE and the largest public early care program available to children from birth to age 3, goes beyond its primary goal of supporting parental employment to enhance the development of low- income children by shifting them onto trajectories of higher quality care. The second study considers the role of two more biologically-based risk factors - negative temperament and special needs status - in explaining the effect of exposure to high quality early care on cognitive and social-emotional development. The third study combines elements of the first two to explore whether the effects of higher quality early care on child outcomes among children who are environmentally vulnerable because they are poor vary depending on whether those children are also biologically vulnerable because they have negative temperaments or have been diagnosed with a special need. Data will be drawn from three datasets: to address the first and third questions, the newly available, nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) will be used. The ECLS-B collected extensive information from parents, child care providers, and kindergarten teachers along with direct assessments of children and observations of child care quality at multiple time-points. To address the second question, the Child Care and Temperament Over Time Study (CCTOTS) and data from the evaluation of Tulsa, Oklahoma's pre-k program (the "Tulsa" study) will be used. CCTOTS is a longitudinal study designed to assess the effect of child care experiences on the development of children classified as having negatively reactive and positively reactive temperaments in infancy, and as such contains highly reliable measures of temperament and child care quality. The Tulsa study is also unique in that it contains high-fidelity administrative data on children enrolled in high quality public pre-k and Head Start programs, as well as direct child assessment data and family background information from parent surveys. OLS regression, as well as econometric techniques aimed at reducing the threat of selection bias such as propensity score matching and regression discontinuity design will be used on the ECLS-B and Tulsa datasets. To capitalize on the repeated observations of children and child care settings in the CCTOTS data, OLS regression followed by latent growth curve analysis will be used. Findings from the proposed studies will inform efforts to support the school readiness of low-income children, children whose disadvantage stems from biologically-based sources, and children with the double disadvantage of both environmental and biological vulnerabilities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: In recent years, researchers and policymakers alike have turned their attention to the potential of high quality early care and education (ECE) experiences to close the school readiness gap between low-income children and their middle- and upper-income peers. The three studies proposed here will inform ECE policies aimed at improving the school readiness of children who are environmentally vulnerable as the result of growing up in a low-income family, children who are biologically vulnerable as the result of having a negative temperament or special needs, and children who are "doubly disadvantaged" because they experience both types of vulnerability. Uncovering for whom higher quality ECE experiences matter most will inform developmental questions regarding differential susceptibility to environmental conditions, as well as policy questions regarding how best to target ECE resources to children who are most vulnerable and who stand to benefit the most from these investments.