Study of Immediate Effects of Caregiver Changes on Infants and Toddlers

(This study received initial funding from NCEDL, however it is being completed by Debby Cryer. For more information click HERE or email her.)

Investigators: Deborah Cryer (cryer@mail.fpg.unc.edu)

Project staff: Laura Wagner-Moore

Research goals/structure: To more fully understand the nature of attachment relationships between infants/toddlers and their caregivers during the first years of child care.

We are studying the effects of changing from one caregiver to another during the infant/toddler years, to evaluate whether, and under what conditions, children's social/emotional functioning is affected, either positively or negatively, by such changes.

Data were collected on about 40 children for 3 weeks before a caregiver change and compared to data on the same measures for 3 weeks after the change in caregiver. Quality of the child care classroom environment and the caregiver's interactions with the children were collected, as well as basic developmental information on children.

Major findings, conclusions: Analyses should be completed during 2001. However, in considering preliminary analyses of a few children, we note that, surprisingly, children in typical community child care centers are not always distressed at losing their caregiver, although some may be. In fact, we have observed that children appear to be completely without distress when they move from a condition where the caregiver is less positively interactive (lower quality) to a new situation where the caregiver is more positively interactive, and where there are more opportunities for interesting stimulation (higher quality). This very preliminary finding, if substantiated throughout the completion of the study, will encourage a sensible approach to considerations regarding the provision of continuity of care to infants and toddlers.

Avid proponents of providing continuity of caregiver may learn that effects on children depend on a number of factors, rather than simply on whether continuity of caregiver is provided or not.

We found that children were moved when it met the immediate pragmatic needs of enrollment. Often this complicated our data collection and participants were lost because sufficient pre-transition data could not be collected.

We found much more chaos associated with children's transitions from one class to another than we had expected.

Products: Cryer, D., Hurwitz, S. & Wolery, M. (2001). Continuity of care for infants and toddlers in center-based childcare: Report on a survey of center practices. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15, 497-514.