I. QUALITY THRESHOLDS, FEATURES, AND DOSAGE IN EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION: INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW.

This monograph addresses the hypotheses that preschool children benefit most strongly when early care and education (ECE) is at or above a threshold of quality, has specific quality features, and/or is of longer duration. These issues are pivotal in recent policies designed to improve the quality of ECE, especially for children from low-income families. Evidence of quality thresholds in which ECE quality has stronger impacts in settings with moderate to high levels of quality than in settings with low quality would inform policy initiatives in which monetary incentives or consequences are allocated to ECE settings based on their level of quality. Evidence that specific features of quality, such as quality of teacher-child interactions and of literacy and mathematics instruction, are predictors of gains in child outcomes could help inform quality improvement efforts. Evidence that more time spent in center-based ECE or in instruction in specific content areas predict larger gains among preschoolers could be useful in designing public preschool programs such as Head Start or prekindergarten. Secondary data analyses of eight large studies of preschool children in center-based ECE were conducted. Analyses focused on quality thresholds and quality features examined the extent to which three types of quality measures predicted gains in children's language, literacy, mathematics, and social skills. The measures comprised (1) global quality measures that provide an overall or global rating of quality, focusing on interactions as well as on physical features of the environment, activities, and routines; (2) interaction-specific measures that focus in depth on the quality of interactions between teachers and children with respect to instructional and emotional support; and (3) domain-specific measures that focus on the quality of instruction and stimulation in specific content areas such as early language and literacy. The goal was to provide replicated analyses with data from several projects in order to address each question. Multilevel analyses that controlled for entry skills were conducted, and results were combined by using meta-analysis, nonlinear and nonparametric analyses, and propensity score analyses. With respect to thresholds, the analyses suggest that increases in the quality of instruction are related to larger gains in language and literacy outcomes, but only in higher quality classrooms. Results point to stronger associations between quality and child outcomes in higher versus lower quality classrooms for measures of the instructional quality of teacher-child interactions and of the quality of specific activities thought to promote early literacy, such as teaching phonemic skills and book reading. In addition, the items focusing on quality of interactions on the global measure also predicted acquisition of language and social skills in higher but not in lower quality classrooms. With respect to quality features, interaction-specific and especially domain-specific measures of quality remained significant predictors of child outcomes, whereas global measures of quality were never significant positive predictors, when both global and more specific measures of quality were included simultaneously in analyses. There is thus consistent evidence that more specific measures of quality are better predictors of child outcomes. With respect to dosage, several approaches were used in operationalizing both the cumulative and current dosage of children's exposure to ECE. Propensity score analyses that included baseline scores on outcomes to control for selection into larger dosages suggested that children with two as opposed to one year of Head Start had stronger vocabulary and literacy skills both immediately upon exit from Head Start and at the end of kindergarten. Fewer absences and more observed time spent on instruction were associated with stronger gains in literacy and mathematics skills. Finally, findings revealed that more time spent on instruction in classrooms with higher overall quality was particularly important to the development of mathematics skills. No other replicated evidence of quality by quantity interactions emerged.

III. TESTING FOR QUALITY THRESHOLDS AND FEATURES IN EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION.

In this chapter, we report on the analyses focusing on both quality thresholds and quality features. First, we address questions about quality thresholds, using two analytic approaches. The analyses ask whether there is evidence suggesting thresholds in the association between a specific quality measure and a specific child outcome. Second, we extend these analyses to ask whether each child outcome is more strongly related to global quality measures or to quality measures that measure teacher-child interactions or quality of instruction in a given content area. The research to date provides the basis for the articulation of two hypotheses related to quality thresholds and features: (1) the quality of ECE is a stronger predictor of residualized gains in child outcomes in classrooms with higher quality than in classrooms with lower quality and (2) more specific measures of quality are stronger predictors of residualized gains in child outcomes than are global measures. We turn now to analyses intended to address these hypotheses by using data from several data sets.

Food security during infancy: implications for attachment and mental proficiency in toddlerhood.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the associations between household food security (access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food) during infancy and attachment and mental proficiency in toddlerhood. METHODS: Data from a longitudinal nationally representative sample of infants and toddlers (n = 8944) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-9-month (2001-2002) and 24-month (2003-2004) surveys were used. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the direct and indirect associations between food insecurity at 9 months, and attachment and mental proficiency at 24 months. RESULTS: Food insecurity worked indirectly through depression and parenting practices to influence security of attachment and mental proficiency in toddlerhood. CONCLUSIONS: Social policies that address the adequacy and predictability of food supplies in families with infants have the potential to affect parental depression and parenting behavior, and thereby attachment and cognitive development at very early ages.

Food insecurity works through depression, parenting, and infant feeding to influence overweight and health in toddlers.

We used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort 9- and 24-mo surveys (n = 8693) and Structural Equation Modeling to examine direct and indirect associations between food insecurity and toddlers' overweight (weight for length), physical health, and length for age. There were significant effects of food insecurity on parental depression and parental depression in turn influenced physical health. There were also significant effects of food insecurity on parenting practices, which in turn were significantly associated with infant feeding and subsequently toddlers' overweight. There were no significant direct or indirect associations between food insecurity and toddlers' length for age. Our results show that food insecurity influences parenting, including both depression and parenting practices. Findings suggest parental depression is a stressor on parenting behavior that social policy should address to alleviate problematic child health outcomes. Findings underscore the importance of continuing and strengthening policy initiatives to ensure that families with infants and toddlers have sufficient, predictable, and reliable food supply.

Child outcome measures in the study of child care quality.

This article assesses whether there are methodological problems with child outcome measures that may contribute to the small associations between child care quality and child outcomes found in the literature. Outcome measures used in 65 studies of child care quality published between 1979 and December 2005 were examined, taking the previous review by Vandell and Wolfe (2000) as the starting point. Serious methodological problems were not pervasive for child outcome measures. However, methodological concerns were most prevalent among measures of socioemotional development. Furthermore, psychometric information on outcome measures was often missing from published reports, and health outcomes and approaches to learning were infrequently studied. Future research should address alignment issues between aspects of quality and the specific child outcomes chosen for study.

Longitudinal prediction of child outcomes from differing measures of parenting in a low-income sample.

This study examined predictions from preschool parenting measures to middle childhood cognitive and socioemotional child outcomes to explore whether parenting assessment methodologies that require more time, training, and expense yield better predictions of child outcomes than less intensive methodologies. Mother-child dyads (N = 278) in low-income African American families were assessed when the child was in preschool, using maternal report, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment-Short Form (P. Baker & F. Mott, 1989; R. Bradley & B. Caldwell, 1984), and structured observational measures of parenting. Child outcomes reported by children, mothers, teachers, and direct assessment were collected 4 years later. All parenting methodologies showed some predictive value; however, observational parenting measures showed the strongest and most consistent predictions of child outcomes.

Experimental studies of welfare reform and children.

Even prior to passage of federal welfare reform, many demonstration programs anticipated key features of the 1996 law, such as "work-first" strategies, time limits on welfare receipt, and financial incentives to work. Over the past decade, 10 experimental evaluations of these programs have extended their studies to examine the impacts on children. This article provides a synthesis of findings from the first seven of these studies to release results concerning child impacts. Key observations include the following: Across the different types of welfare-to-work programs examined, researchers found neither widespread harm nor widespread benefit to young children, but some significant impacts did occur. Favorable impacts tended to occur in programs that improved family economic status or maternal education, but these programs still did not bring children to the level of national norms for positive child development. Unfavorable impacts tended to occur when families did not show economic progress or when their economic situation worsened, when the children were adolescents, and--unexpectedly--when the families were believed to be at lower risk for long-term welfare receipt. Thus, although impacts were not widespread, these programs did have the potential to affect children for both better and worse across a range of developmental outcomes. The authors conclude that these findings underscore the importance of strengthening program approaches to enhance developmental outcomes for children in families being served by the welfare system.