Booklet 3: Daycare Flashcards
What is day care?
Tempory care of children outside of the home. Either nursery or family based.
What is nursery based care?
Staffed by trained workers on a specialist site. nurseries are inspected by OFSTED which maintains high standards.
What is family based care?
- Registered and OFSTED checked child minder- usually at the child minders house.
- Nanny- A employee who looks after the child in their own home.
- Informal arrangements- Relatives, neighbours. These are often unpaid.
What effect did Bowlby’s work on maternal deprivation have on day care?
It influenced may women to avoid working as day care was condemned as likely to lead to long term emotional damage.
What have more recent psychologists found the possible benefits of day care are on a child’s social development?
They provide more educational toys and opportunities to learn and practice social skills such as sharing. There are well trained, educated an experienced practitioners who look after the children very well. Mothers are less stressed so perform better at home and have a lower chance of suffering from depression.
What are the negative aspects of day care on the child?
Home care is more loving ad personal, so the child will get note attention. Negative social behaviour such as bullying can be learnt at day care and separation from primary caregiver can affect security from attachment.
Explain the effects of day care.
The issue of the effects of day care is a passionate one, some people believe it is beneficial and others argue it is harmful to a child’s development. This means it is difficult for psychologists to get unbiased, objective research and studies in this area have produced very contradictory findings.
Who carried out the studies of the effects of day care on social development.
Field et al, DiLalla, Shea et al and NICHD.
Who carried out the positive effects on peer relationships study?
Field et al.
Explain Field et al’s study and findings.
Field found the amount of time a child spent in full time day care was positively correlated to the numbers of friends they had when they went to school. So the more time a child spent in day care, the more friends they had once joining school and therefore better peer relationships.
Explain DiLalla’s study and findings.
DiLalla, carried out a correlational study into time spent in day care and pro-social behaviour. DiLalla found a negative correlation between the amount of time spent in day care and pro social behaviour. Children who spent more time in day care were less cooperative and helpful in their dealing with other children.
Explain Shea et al’s study and findings.
Shea videod children children aged 4 years, who attended day care for either 2, 3, or 5 days a week. Over her 10 week observation, the amount of aggressive behaviour decreased in all 3 groups of children. The change was greater in children who attended for 5 days compared to those who only attended for 2.
Explain The NICHD.
A longitudinal study of over 1000 American children from families with different backgrounds. They were assessed at regular intervals. At age 5, the study found that the more time a child spent in day care the more likely the child would be aggressive and disobedient. If a child spends full time in day care they show behavioural problems more so than kids at home. In 2007, Belksy found a link between the child at the end of primary school and day care and increased aggressiveness.
What are the evaluation points for research on day care?
Individual differences, biased research, problems with methodology and practical use of research.
Explain the evaluation point ‘individual differences’
Assessing the quality of day care on children is not easy due to high variation in types and quality of day care. This makes it very difficult to generalise from research findings in one setting to other day care centres. There is also differences amongst children which would affect the findings such as personality.
