According to latest research by American scientists released on Monday, children at pre-school age who spent at least one year in a day care centre were at much greater risk for being troublesome in class when they began school education, and this effect lasted through the sixth grade.
The New York Times reported that the long-lasting research compared 1 300 pre-school kids in various settings, including attending a large day care centre, staying home with a parent, and being taken care of by a nanny or some relatives.
As the children were at school, their teachers rated them on such troublemaking behaviors as interrupting class, teasing and bullying. The researchers discovered that each year spent by the kids in a day care centre for at least ten hours weekly was connected with a 1 per cent higher score on a standardized evaluation of behavior problems.
This appeared to be true no matter the child’s gender or family income, and no matter the quality of the day care centre, the Times informed. The research did not inspect why time in day care could result in bad behavior at school.
According to the report of The Times, the American government-financed Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development discovered that kids who spent time in high-quality day care centers had more advanced vocabulary scores in elementary school.
