Excerpts from the report:
Much of the research on the effects of child care and early education programs and children's competencies has been conducted outside of Canada. Little information exists on the patterns of use of early childhood care and education (ECCE) services by Canadian children. Further, there is limited information available on the demographic profiles of families that use different types of arrangements or ECCE programs. It is unclear what the impact of the various types of ECCE programs would be for Canadian children. With this in mind the purpose of the current study is to:
1) Examine patterns of ECCE use by Canadian pre-schoolers (2-3 years of age),
2) Describe the family demographics of children who use these various forms of care, and
3) Examine the associations of different forms of ECCE with a variety of standardised, parent reported, and teacher reported outcomes two years later when children are in kindergarten.
4) Examine interactions/moderating effects of socio-economic factors such as income and education
Outcomes considered in this study include a standardised measure of receptive verbal abilities, teacher reports of academic skills, and parent and teacher ratings of behaviour problems and pro-social behaviours.