«Poverty affects not only the amount and quality of learning support a child receives, but also the likelihood of experiencing stress, chaos, and violence,» notes Eric Dearing, professor
of applied developmental psychology at Boston College, who led the study.
«In large part, our results can be explained by the fact that low - income children who attended higher - quality child care developed reading and math skills in early childhood that likely prepared them for later achievement in middle childhood,» said Dearing, associate professor of
applied developmental psychology at Boston College and the study's lead author.
«This has very important implications for early education policy in the United States, where we are debating how early to start and whether preschool should be provided to all children or exclusively target low - income children,» said Dearing, a professor of
applied developmental psychology who is also a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development at the University of Oslo.
Child abuse, child development, and social policy: Advances in applied developmental psychology
Journal of
applied developmental psychology.