Children’s time spent in daycare centers should be kept to less than 10 hours per day, but children aged three and younger who attend kindergartens attain better development than those cared for in a home setting by babysitters, a study released yesterday found.
The project was conducted by National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) researchers and funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The team gathered data from March 2016 to February on 6,590 three-month-olds and 2,164 three-year-olds and had samples of parents, caregivers and teachers fill out questionnaires, said NTNU Department of Human Development and Family Studies professor Chang Chien-ju (張鑑如), who heads the project.
Photo courtesy of the Shihmen District Office
One project goal is to build the first children development archive in the Chinese-speaking world, Chang added.
The study showed that up to 77 percent of children younger than 12 months were not cared for by their parents, and that children spent an average of 11.56 hours per day in daycare centers.
Of those not attended by parents, 40 percent were looked after by other caregivers at the children’s homes, 36 percent by caregivers at kindergartens, 18 percent by family members or friends in other home settings and 6 percent by nannies, the study showed.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
Children at kindergartens developed better language skills than those cared for in a home setting, as they received more stimuli from interpersonal interaction, Fu Jen Catholic University associate professor Tu Miao-ju (涂妙如) said.
Children who spent less than 10 hours per day at daycare centers showed better overall development than those at the centers for more than 11 hours, the study showed.
The data showed that Taiwanese children used electronic devices, such as smartphones and tablets, for an average of 2.3 hours per day, which was longer than the 2.1 hours in Melbourne, but shorter than the 2.8 hours in Shanghai and 2.65 hours in the US.
Watching electronic screens for an extended period negatively affects children, especially their cognitive and language development, Chang said.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Children who are read to show better cognitive and language skills, but the study showed that 33 percent of parents “never” read to their children, or only once a week, she said.
Parents with lower socioeconomic status had fewer children’s books and their children used electronic devices for longer daily periods than other children, the study showed.
Families with fewer books at home can visit public libraries, or spend more time playing and interacting with their children, NTNU associate professor Chou Li-tuan (周麗端) said.
The project plans to track the children’s development until they are eight years old, Chang said, adding that the study’s questionnaires are available online as part of Academia Sinica’s Survey Research Data Archive.
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