Health Canal – Staff Writer
“Children who use centre-based child care and multiple care arrangements across their early years are better prepared for school, a new QUT study has found. Dr Chrystal Whiteford, from QUT’s Faculty of Education, said early child care played an important role in children’s future academic, behavioural and health outcomes with child care experiences as an infant and toddler having positive and negative effects on children aged 4-5 and 6-7. “An important finding from the study was that at 4 to 5 years of age, children in centre-based care and multiplicity of arrangements across the early years were outperforming their peers in early academic competencies,” Dr Whiteford said. “However, while the study revealed developmental benefits of early child care, there were also potential negative impacts upon children’s social-emotional, academic and health outcomes.” The study which tracked the milestones of more than 5000 children from birth to seven years, was part of Dr Whiteford’s PhD and used data from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.”(more)