Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Part IV reviews risk factors not discussed in the previous section – such as prematurity, safety, and nutrition – and, in addition, sets these and other concerns into a wider context of public policy. The chapter by Barratt covers a wide range of risk and policy issues. These include poverty, day care, infant mortality, abuse, and neglect. A variety of intervention programs – such as Head Start, welfare, health care, and nutritional supplementation – are reviewed to assist families in finding medical care, nutritional support, income support, developmental assessment, child care, and family resources such as parental leave and home-visiting programs. Barratt argues that to address the major problems of infants at risk, a response from society as a whole is needed. In particular, Barratt argues that universities need to be more directly engaged in both research and public policy to help infants at risk. Friedman, Randolph, and Kochanoff review the history of research on the effects of nonparental child care on infant development. Much of this research suffers from a variety of theoretical and methodological problems that make the findings inconclusive. A major portion of this chapter is devoted to reviewing the findings of a study of the effects of day care that used a broad-based national sample across a variety of childcare contexts, such as family day care and center day care. ... log in or subscribe to read full text