According to a recent survey, fully 58% of children who are 5 years or younger are in nonparental arrangements on a regular basis, including infant care centers, Head Start, relative care, family day care homes, and nanny care. Child care becomes especially common by the later preschool years, when 76% of 4-year-olds and 83% of 5-year-olds are in some form of nonparental care. However, several recent studies have suggested that the quality of this care is highly variable. Structural adjustable characteristics are aspects of infant care settings such as group size, child–adult ratio, caregiver education, and caregiver training that might be subject to regulation by communities or states. Child care processes are the experiences that children have in child care settings, including interactions with caregivers and peers and opportunities to participate in different activities.
In a recent comprehensive review of infant care research that was published last year, we examined numerous studies that looked at relations between process measures of child care quality and children's developmental outcomes. With respect to infant care, we concluded that high-quality day care clearly has positive effects on children's intellectual, verbal, and cognitive development, especially when children would otherwise experience impoverished and relatively unstimulating home environments.