Household Chaos and Children's Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Development in Early Childhood: Does Childcare Play a Buffering Role?

Overview

Journal Early Child Res Q

Date 2018 May 4

PMID 29720785

Citations 34

Authors

Daniel Berry

Clancy Blair

Michael Willoughby

Patricia Garrett-Peters

Lynne Vernon-Feagans

W Roger Mills-Koonce

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Evidence suggests that household chaos is associated with less optimal child outcomes. Yet, there is an increasing indication that children's experiences in childcare may buffer them against the detrimental effects of such environments. Our study aims were to test: (1) whether children's experiences in childcare mitigated relations between household chaos and children's cognitive and social development, and (2) whether these (conditional) chaos effects were mediated by links between chaos and executive functioning. Using data from ( = 1,235)-a population-based sample of families from low-income, rural contexts-our findings indicated that household disorganization in early childhood was predictive of worse cognitive and social outcomes at approximately age five. However, these relations were substantially attenuated for children attending greater childcare hours. Subsequent models indicated that the conditional associations between household disorganization and less optimal outcomes at age five were mediated by conditional links between disorganization and less optimal executive functioning.

Citing Articles

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