Child development: Comparison between children who attend or do not attend public daycare centres

Abstract

Introduction: To avaluate and compare the development of children attending public nursery school from their peers who remain only in the home environment. Methods: We performed an observational, cross-sectional study with 167 children aged between 11 and 57 months from Alto Vale do Jequitinhonha, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The subjects were divided into two groups (nursery and hom areas:e), homogeneous in age, gender, socioeconomic status, and maternal education. The development areas: personal-social, language, and fine and gross motor were evaluated through the Denver II test and the quality of environment of the five public nursery school ' through the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ITERS-R). We used the chi-square statistical test for comparison between groups. Results: There were no significant statistical differences between groups for the overall test result for Denver II, nor for the different areas of the test. The environments presented daycare quality between 'inadequate' and 'minimal'. Thus, there was no difference between attending a low quality daycare or just staying in the home for child development. Conclusion: No difference was observed when comparing the development areas: personal-social, language, and gross and fine motor of child who attend public nursery school and their peers who remained only in the home environment. The daycare environments analysed showed quality considered 'inadequate', which may have influenced the results as the literature has pointed out the need for a quality childcare environment to positively influence child development.