A new survey finds that child care benefits are highly valued by employees with children — even over 401(k) benefits.

QUOTABLE & NOTABLE

FACT OF THE WEEK

A recent survey of early childhood educators by the National Association for the Education of Young Children found that over half (56%) of center directors and family child care owners reported being under-enrolled relative to their facility’s capacity — serving fewer children than they could given their space.

As the report explains, under-enrollment typically does not represent lower demand or need for child care, but rather that programs are struggling to keep staff. The survey confirms that 53% of programs reported staffing shortages.

EVENTS & HAPPENINGS

Next week’s Crane Research Forum will feature Dr. Elizabeth Hadley from the University of South Florida, who will share her research on learning disruptions for pre-kindergarteners during COVID-19. Register here.

BEYOND THE BUCKEYE STATE

Did you know that the United States ranks second in the world when it comes to ... unaffordable child care? A Bank of America report indicates that costs are higher here than in every other developed country except New Zealand.

New America describes an early childhood “microsite model” being piloted in Washington, D.C., to provide small-scale infant and toddler learning programs within the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). The initiative is being funded by the Bainum Family Foundation and run in partnership with DCPS and a nonprofit operating high-quality infant and toddler development programs. Here's a paper that further describes the microsite concept as a solution for infant/toddler care, which tends to be in high demand.

Child Care Aware outlines various legislative proposals on the table across states, with respect to child care subsidy reimbursement rates, child care funding in general, family income eligibility, and more.

WHAT WE'RE READING

Here’s an interesting read from researchers at the University of California, Davis, about the intentional, research-based design behind effective media programming for children.

A report by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families makes recommendations for states in their Medicaid program administration to better support mothers, babies, and young children.

New research from Florida Atlantic University and Aarhus University in Denmark suggests that when parents reminisce with their children, it can promote high-quality language and even inspire similar quality speech to what occurs during book sharing. To conduct the study, researchers examined transcripts of conversations between a parent and a child aged 3 to 5 in Denmark while engaged in three separate tasks: reminiscing, building with LEGO blocks, or sharing a picture book. They examined the quality of conversation during each of these context-specific activities, as well as possible effects from variables like parents’ level of education or gender. 

Language quality was measured by the extent to which parents engaged and responded to the child, and researchers concluded that “parent speech to their children in reminiscing was consistently higher quality, with respect to language supporting properties, than speech during toy play, and on several measures speech in reminiscing was higher quality than speech in book sharing.” With respect to parent education levels, it was associated with measures of speech quality across contexts, suggesting that education itself impacts speech quality, even in countries like Denmark where education level is less associated with socioeconomic markers than in the U.S. There were no associated differences by gender, with patterns of speech quality not differing significantly between mothers and fathers. The full study, published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, can be found here.

This edition was written by Jamie O’Leary.

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