Differential effects of early child care quality on language development of young children (6-36 months)

Pages: 211-219
B. E. Ramitha and P. B. Khadi (Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Community Science, UAS, Dharwad, Karnataka)

To examine the individual and contextual characteristics impacting the quality of child care environment of young children and its influence on language development, a sample of 112 infants and toddlers of 6 to 36 months and their caregivers were drawn from urban and rural areas of Dharwad district. Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS) was used to rate home environment as well as Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) centers and Bayley-III (2006) was used to assess language development of young children. The observations of caregiver and child’s interaction, quality of environment provided was observed in child’s homes and day care centers. The findings revealed that almost half of infants who were reared in urban homes had average quality (53.33 %) of home environment while 30 per cent had high quality, but 16.66 per cent parents had low quality. The young children below three years who were sent to day care centers in urban locality were in centers with average quality (45.45 %) of environment and almost equal proportion (27.27 %) were in low and high quality centers. Most of the young children in rural homes had low quality home environment (46.66 %) while 43.33 per cent had average quality and only 10 per cent had high child care quality. The regression analyses revealed that quality of home (R2 = 0.45) and day care environment (R2 = 0.48) predicted child’s language development of young children. Higher quality of home/center environment predicted better social skills and lower quality lead to lower social and emotional skills of young children. Gender, child’s age at entry into center, caregiver’s temperament, sensitivity and education had a mediating role on language development of infants. Thus there is a need to invest in high quality child care environment in both home and center. So, parents/caregivers need to be educated to enhance the quality of environment.