Lemay, Lise; Bigras, Nathalie et Bouchard, Caroline
(2010).
« Adaptative behaviors of infants experiencing different types of childcare since their first year of life. ». Conference, 8e Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE), Honolulu, États-Unis, janvier, 2010.
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Résumé
Previous studies have identified maladaptation to the environment as a precursor of behavio problems (De Schippet et al., 2014, Thomas et Chess, 1996). Since adaptative behaviors seem to become more intentional and heterogenous in the second year of life (Black, Hess et Berenson-Howard, 2000), attending good quality daycare early in life could possibly promote the child'a development by fostering the learning of better behaviors, specifically for children at risk of maladaptation in their home environment (Ryan, Fauth et brooks-Gunn, 2006). In Québec (Canada), the governmnet has created in 1997 a network of nonprofits educational childcare services offering a good quality of care to all preschoolers. Yet, few studies have investigated the effects of Quebecer's childcare services on the adaptation of young children. Accordingly, this longitudinale study investigates the effects of exposure to three types of childcare (daycare, family daycare or parental care) since the first year of life on the child's adaptative behaviors.
136 participants, recruted between the ages of 5 and 12 months, were distributed in three uneqaul groups according to the type of chilcare they were experiencing (1. daycare n=47; 2. family daycare n=29; 3. parental care n=60). The children were evaluated four times with the Behavioral Rating Scale (BRS) of the Bayley Scale of Infant Development (BSID-II, 1993) in their home environement (10, 15, 18 and 24 months).
Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that only the main effect of the time was significant, F(1,133)= 6.39, p=.01. Post-hoc analysis indicate a significant difference between the first and the fourth measurements (t=-3.14, p=.01) and between the third and the fourth measurements (t=-3.12, p=.01). In other words, all group of children showed better adaptative behaviors at 24 months than at 10 and 18 months.
This study suggest that adaptative behaviors appear to become more positive as the child grows uo: he is probably learning better adaptative strategies to cope with unfamiliar and stressins situations. However, at 18 months, all scores drop, which could indicate the beginning of the ''terrible two''. The absence of group difference might be explained by the relative homogeneity of the sample, with an underrepresentation of high risks families. Moreover, the interval of 14 months between the first and last measurement may have been too short to reveal any cumulative effect of chilcare experience.