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Daycare Effects on Preschool <br /> 11 <br /> 1) and that the mean scores appear to diverge during the period, 24-54 months, in which <br /> most of the com m unity 12-52 children are attending daycare suggests that corn m unity <br /> daycare is a plausible explanation for the observed effects. <br /> This study makes a unique contribution since it explicitly examines the effect of <br /> daycare on the trends of intellectual development of poverty children. In particular the <br /> present work demonstrates three phenomena: (1) a linear decline and a marked dip in <br /> cognitive scores during late infancy characterizes the intellectual development of <br /> poverty children, (2) university- and corn m unity-based quality daycare tends to lessen <br /> this dip (i.e., these children have less trouble when the tests become more verbal), and (3) <br /> corn m unity based daycare lessens the pronounced decline in IQ scores of poverty children <br /> without daycare. <br /> Additionally, our results indicate that the intensity of the daycare experience was <br /> an important factor in poverty children's intellectual development. Intensity was indexed <br /> by two confounded factors, months of daycare experience and curriculum emphasis on <br /> cognitive development. Thus it was assumed that children with university-based daycare <br /> received the most intense treatment on both dimensions, children with at least a year of <br /> co m m unity daycare received treatment of moderate intensity, and children with little or <br /> no com munity daycare received negligible treatment on both dimensions. The effects of <br /> intensity were observed in three manners. First, examination of Figure 1 shows that the <br /> average scores of children enrolled in university based daycare were always higher than <br /> those in the the corn m unity groups , while the average scores of children attending some <br /> corn m unity based daycare were always higher than children with little or no daycare. In <br /> fact, the differences between the two community groups increased in the 24 to 54 month <br /> period, the children in the corn munity-based daycare were receiving treatment. Second, <br /> analysis of the data revealed that the three groups differed in the hypothesized order <br /> according to the intensity of treatment on the average IQ level over time. In addition <br /> children who received little or no systematic daycare in the corn m unity showed the most <br />