Child Care and Cortisol Across Infancy and Toddlerhood: Poverty, Peers, and Developmental Timing.

ABSTRACT: Evidence suggests that relations between child care and children's development-behaviorally and physiologically-likely differ between children from high-versus low-risk contexts. Using data from the Family Life Project (N = 1,155), the authors tested (a) whether within- and between-child differences in children's child care experiences (i.e., quantity, type, caregiver responsivity, and peer exposure) were predictive of their cortisol levels across infancy and toddlerhood and (b) whether these relations differed for children experiencing different levels of environmental risk. They found some evidence of such interactive effects. For children from high-risk contexts, within-child increases in child care hours were predictive of cortisol decreases. The inverse was evident for children from l

SUBMITTER: Berry D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5962281 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature