Dr. Côté research was funded by the RBC Foundation.  The total value of this award is $80,000 over two years. Dr. Côté’s was the recipient of the Mary C. Fellowship which is awarded to the fellowship candidate who achieved the highest rating from the Professional Advisory Board.

Academic Biography

 Dr. Côté is a professor in the Department of Social and Preventative Medicine at the University of Montreal. Dr. Côté is interested in the psychosocial determinants of mental health and school readiness for children, and in risk factors for mood and behavioral disorders.  Her research examines whether the quality of early childhood care carries a risk for children’s emotional and behavioral problems and, if so, under which conditions.

The Day Care Controversy

In Canada, and in many western industrialized countries, many children attend day care.  However, the long-term effects of day care on child development are a topic of ongoing debate.  Many people worry that that group day care, versus parental care at home, is detrimental to children’s long-term emotional and behavioral development, while others believe that there is little to no risk in sending a child to a good day care.

Rationale: The Research That Lead to This Study

So far research has not been able to settle the day care debate: Early studies suggested that day care may be a stressful experience, that it could interfere with the development of healthy parent-child relationships, and be a serious risk for social maladjustment.  More recent studies support the view that day care quality, and not day care in general, has the potential to affect children’s long-term development.  Several studies found that high quality day care is associated with increased cognitive and social development.  Some of the same researchers found that even high quality day care was associated with increased risk for disruptive behavior.

Moreover, most researchers have ignored the personal variables, such as family circumstances and individual characteristics, which are likely to influence the association between childcare and children’s development when conducting their studies.  Dr. Côté and the members of her research team are among the first researchers to consider both the quality of the day care experience, and the personal variables that may put a child at risk of developing emotional or behavioral problems, to better assess the effects of day care on children’s mental health.

Project Summary

 With this grant, Dr. Côté and her team investigated two aspects of the day care-mental health association.  They examined the association between day care quality and children’s behavioral problems such as conduct problems, hyperactivity, and emotional problems such as depression and anxiety.  They also examined how personal variables moderate the day care-mental health association to provide information about children who are likely to benefit from, or be negatively affected by, day care.

In this study Dr. Côté’s team followed families who used maternal childcare and various types of non-maternal childcare including day care.  Dr. Côté’s team assessed approximately 600 children and their families multiple times over two years starting when the children were 2-years-old.  These assessments covered three areas: children’s behavioral problems (conduct problems, hyper activity, depression, anxiety), family risks (socioeconomic status, family history of mental illness, conflict), and quality of the day care environment. 

Outcome

Dr. Côté and her team found that regular use of high quality non-maternal childcare has several benefits, particularly for children of mothers with lower levels of education.  Levels of physical aggression were higher among boys, among children with single mothers, and when there was a sibling in the family.  Irregular use of non-maternal childcare for mothers with low levels of education was also related to higher levels of physical aggression.  Anxiety at 3-years-of-age was significantly related to lower levels of maternal education, but was negatively related to quality of non-maternal childcare.  Prosocial behavior scores were significantly higher for girls, but lower when mothers were younger at childbirth.  Regular use of non-maternal childcare at 2-years-of-age was significantly associated with higher levels of prosocial behavior at 3-years-of-age.