Early Child Care and Education

Early child care and education is defined as any care on a regular basis by someone other than a child's immediate family members. Infant and toddler care refers to this type of care for children from birth to age 3 years. Early care and education are important to educational psychology because they are associated with later cognitive and socioemotional outcomes for children in educational settings. In addition, with the historical changes that resulted in parents working outside of the home, increases in wraparound child care to include hours before and/or after the school day have become normative for school-age children, with implications for educational psychology. This review first defines ...