Daycare double duty

Parents' knowledge of children's daycare experience incomplete, Concordia study finds

2012-12-11

(Press-News.org) Montreal, December 11, 2012 – Nearly 1.5 million Canadian children grow up living double lives: one at home with their parents and another in some form of childcare environment. While parents hope to be informed of what goes on when they're not around, a recent Concordia study suggests that parents ought to be more involved in the daycare experience, a major component of their child's development.

Nina Howe, a professor in Concordia's Department of Education and a lead author on the study, set out to uncover what Canadian parents really know about their children's care. "We suspected that most parents know very little about the education, training, and background experiences of their children's educators or what goes on during the child's day," she explains. "No one buys a car without doing some homework, so why don't parents do some homework when selecting childcare?"

The past few decades have seen a historic change in the number of Canadian women employed in the workforce, and consequently more parents require childcare. With the demand far exceeding the number of available spaces, Howe believes some parents may ascribe more importance to factors like the centre's proximity than its philosophy.

The study, which will soon be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Early Childhood Research, was part of a larger project on delivering professional development to early childhood educators. Howe and her colleagues Ellen Jacobs and Holly Recchia at Concordia's Department of Psychology and Goranka Vukelich at Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ontario were interested in whether parents noticed a difference in the quality of their children's education after changes in curriculum had been implemented.

The researchers singled out several aspects of the daycare experience, from the childcare centre's educational mandate to the teacher's education. They based their research on 44 not-for-profit daycare centres in three cities across the country—Halifax, Montreal and Winnipeg. The research team interviewed 261 parents or guardians by phone, and found that while seventy-five percent of parents reported some knowledge of the centre's philosophy, which was for the most part acquired from written statements issued by the educator, even fewer parents, about forty percent, knew how much education the teacher had.

Research indicates that teachers with more formal training provide more developmentally appropriate activities for the children and have stronger relations with parents. This is due to the fact that during his or her training, the teacher would have had courses and field placements that would have taught them to establish a good rapport with parents and keep the lines of communication open.

"Parents are often unaware of the role that teacher education plays in providing high quality care for children; they think that an attractive centre with a warm and nurturing teacher is sufficient," Howe explains. "While these factors are important, parents need to know what the centre's philosophy is, what kind of activities are offered to the children, how the day is organized, and so on. Considering that many children spend eight to nine hours a day, five days per week in childcare, this is a critical question."

Howe has written a new book with Dr. Larry Prochner at the University of Alberta titled Recent Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada. The book provides an overview of early childhood education with a focus on historical context, aspects of various curricula, and government involvement in education programs.

### Related links: Concordia's Department of Education http://doe.concordia.ca/index.php Nina Howe's Research @ Concordia profile http://www.concordia.ca/explore/#!/profile/90/ Journal of Early Childhood Research http://ecr.sagepub.com/ Recent Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada http://www.utppublishing.com/Recent-Perspectives-on-Early-Childhood-Education-and-Care-in-Canada.html

Media contact: Cléa Desjardins
Senior Advisor, External Communications
Concordia University
Tel: 514-848-2424, ext. 5068
Cell: 514-909-2999
e-mail: clea.desjardins@concordia.ca
Web: concordia.ca/media-relations
Twitter: twitter.com/CleaDesjardins END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Primary care physicians play vital role in caring for diabetes patients

2012-12-11

Boston, MA – Previous research has shown that patients without a consistent primary care physician (PCP) have worse outcomes than those who do, but little is known about why this is true. New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) has brought to light the importance of the role of a primary care physician in a population of diabetes patients. Their findings are published in the December 10, 2012 issue of Diabetes Care. "We found that primary care physicians provide better care to diabetes patients when compared to other providers in a primary care setting ...

Words have feelings

2012-12-11

Does the emotion in our voice have a lasting effect? According to Annett Schirmer and colleagues from the National University of Singapore, emotion helps us recognize words quicker and more accurately straight away. In the longer term however, we do not remember emotionally intoned speech as accurately as neutral speech. When we do remember the words, they have acquired an emotional value; for example words spoken in a sad voice are remembered as more negative than words spoken in a neutral voice. The study, looking at the role of emotion in word recognition memory, ...

NIH scientists reflect on gains in emerging infectious disease awareness, research and response

2012-12-11

WHAT: In a new essay, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and David Morens, M.D., reflect on what has been learned about emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in the two decades since a major report from the U.S. Institute of Medicine rekindled interest in this important topic. Heightened awareness of EIDs is itself a countermeasure against disease, note the authors. The emergence of new diseases can now be monitored in real time online through Internet resources such as ProMED. In 2012 alone, such resources kept the ...

Best of both worlds: Hybrid approach sheds light on crystal structure solution

2012-12-11

Understanding the arrangement of atoms in a solid — one of solids' fundamental properties — is vital to advanced materials research. For decades, two camps of researchers have been working to develop methods to understand these so-called crystal structures. "Solution" methods, championed by experimental researchers, draw on data from diffraction experiments, while "prediction" methods of computational materials scientists bypass experimental data altogether. While progress has been made, computational scientists still cannot make crystal structure predictions routinely. ...

Weekly dose reduces targeted drug's side effects, but not its activity against ALL

2012-12-11

ATLANTA - A potent chemotherapy agent wrapped within a monoclonal antibody selectively destroys the malignant cells responsible for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in either weekly or monthly dosing, researchers report at the 54th ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition. This 'Trojan horse' assault on the cancer cells has significantly increased the response rate among patients with ALL, and now a clinical trial finds that weekly dosing works well and reduces side effects. "The CD22 antigen is a specific marker for B-cell malignancies and is expressed in more than 90 percent ...

New system for aircraft forecasts potential storm hazards over oceans

2012-12-11

Contact: David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 Zhenya Gallon, NCAR/UCAR Media Relations zhenya@ucar.edu 303-497-8607 National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research New system for aircraft forecasts potential storm hazards over oceans BOULDER—The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has developed a prototype system to help flights avoid major storms as they travel over remote ocean regions. The 8-hour forecasts of potentially dangerous atmospheric conditions are designed for pilots, air traffic ...

Does changing the price of medicine influence consumers' perceived health risk?

2012-12-11

Consumers assume their risk of getting a serious illness is higher when medications are cheaper because they believe that prices for life-saving products are based on need and not profit, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "When consumers see lower prices for a life-saving product, they infer a higher need and thereby a greater risk that they can contract the disease. On the other hand, higher prices signal that a drug or treatment is inaccessible and thus the risk of getting a disease must not be all that great," write authors Adriana Samper ...

Eating or spending too much? Blame it on Facebook

2012-12-11

Participating in online social networks can have a detrimental effect on consumer well-being by lowering self-control among certain users, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Using online social networks can have a positive effect on self-esteem and well-being. However, these increased feelings of self-worth can have a detrimental effect on behavior. Because consumers care about the image they present to close friends, social network use enhances self-esteem in users who are focused on close friends while browsing their social network. This ...

Who are you calling old? How elderly consumers negotiate their identities

2012-12-11

Caregivers view elderly consumers as "old" when they can no longer perform everyday consumption activities on their own regardless of their actual age, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Consumption activities such as shopping, preparing meals, doing housework, going to the doctor, taking medications, and managing money serve as a means of identifying someone as old and a venue for working through conflicts that arise when older consumers who do not identify as old are treated as an 'old person' by family members and service providers," write ...

The current state of lung cancer treatment

2012-12-11

A review in the December issue of the journal Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine by Paul Bunn Jr, MD, University of Colorado Cancer Center investigator and past president of ASCO, IASLC and AACI describes the current state of lung cancer care. "We're in a new paradigm in which we realize this top cause of cancer deaths is actually a number of related diseases, each potentially with its own cause and cure," Bunn says. The review describes the shift from blanketing lung cancer with radiation and chemotherapy, to targeting the specific genetic mutations that cause ...

Daycare double duty

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: