New Analysis Bolsters Child Care, Behavior Link

A previously identified correlation between children’s behavior problems and the time they spent in center-based child-care programs during their early years does not fade by the end of elementary school, according to a report from a long-running federally funded study.

While some similar patterns of disobedience and aggression were detected among children who had received other types of care—such as from nannies or in family child-care homes—those problems did not persist past the 1st grade, say authors of the report, published in the March-April issue of the journal Child Development .

The latest study on the child-care/behavior issue, which focuses on 5th and 6th graders, confirms earlier findings from the same Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which the federal government’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development launched in 1991. The children are being studied at...