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How and why do advocates choose frames, and what are the effects of these choices? This study draws on two decades of data about the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW), an advocacy organization founded by feminist early childhood educators in 1977 to raise child care wages. It traces how contextual factors shape framing choices, and how framing choices shape advocacy goals and claims. Archival research and interview data reveal that discursive barriers led CCW to lobby for ensuring "quality" child care, a strategic choice that inadvertently prioritized professional educators' interests over those of other caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article studies how government childcare subsidies redistribute resources and values among children, parents, providers, and their workers engaged in diverse forms of childcare. Formal centers provide developmentally beneficial care in a regulated setting but are detached from supporting the children’s families. Home-based care often occurs informally, exempt from or in violation of regulations, but its mode of low-cost, flexible-hour, in-community care supports low-income parents’ work and family life. Federal and state policies today are shifting to concentrating subsidies primarily on centers, enhancing regulation of subsidized providers, and incorporating quality measurements. Analyzing the political economy process behind this formalization trend, this Article finds that an educational mode of childcare is taking over the field of childcare experts and advocates, marginalizing childcare’s other societal values, such as its support to low-income parents and minority communities. The Article also offers the first systematic account of the reform’s distributional consequences across the childcare economy. In exchange for more developmental benefits to children in subsidized centers, this reform risks deteriorating home-based care, making the subsidies less accessible to low-income families, and escalating the pressure on low-income parents to trade off paid work and childcare. It concludes that the costs of this formalization trend for low-income families have been underestimated and urges policy responses that support select forms of informal care. This Article primarily focuses on the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the major federal-state partnership program making quality childcare accessible to low-income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although cross‐country differences in the development of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services have been widely researched, the pronounced subnational variation that characterizes many countries is little researched. This article aims to contribute filling this gap by investigating the factors underlying ECEC development in Italian regions, where take‐up rates of public and subsidized daycare centers, behind a national average of 12%, range from 2% in some Southern regions to 25% in Emilia Romagna (North‐East). The article explores the configurations of economic, socio‐demographic, political, institutional, and cultural factors possibly responsible for high and low ECEC development through Fuzzy‐set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Results show that economic development and female employment are necessary but not sufficient conditions for ECEC development; similarly, familistic values, the lack of early ECEC development and of social capital are necessary but not sufficient conditions for limited expansion. The analysis identifies multifaceted patterns of (non)expansion, thus demonstrating the complexity of social policy development processes and preventing determinism based on need, cultural, or economic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines children’s clothes in the practices of everyday life in day care. The data for the article are drawn from an ethnography of three- to seven-year-old children’s day care groups in a day care centre intended for children of shift-working parents in southern Finland. Rather than focusing on the relations between identity, representation and clothing, the article examines what clothes do in the everyday practices of day care. Clothes are seen, first, as mediating perception, and, second, as taking part in and maintaining affective everyday practices. The effects of wearing clothes are analysed using the concept of plug-ins by Latour and that of affordances proposed by Gibson. The plug-ins detect the ways in which objects transmit selfhood, while affordances describe the relation between body and environment in perception. Through the analysis of everyday practices of wearing clothing, clothes are seen as connectors. They enhance, diminish or expand possibilities for perception, action and affective practices in which children engage, thereby altering the children’s ways of being. The article proposes that the wearing of clothing plays a role in constituting selfhood outside of mere representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: First objective was to compare eGFR by Updated Schwartz (US) and Simple Height Independent (SHID) formula with Original Schwartz (OS) in children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). The second objective was to compare eGFR in children below and above two years. Methods: This analytic study on estimation of GFR was based on retrospective data collected from 78 children with SAM at Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit from October 2014 - March 2015. Glomerular filtration rate was calculated using serum creatinine (S. Cr) and height in Original Schwartz, US and by age in SHID equation and compared with OS as standard. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: There were 78 children in this study. Males were 39(50%). Mean age of patients was 18±15.53 months with 62(79.48%) ≤24 months. Mean weight, height and Mid Upper Arm Circumference was 5.69±2.42kg, 68.52+13.59 cm and 10±1.57 cm respectively. Mean eGFR by OS, US and SHID formula was 71.45±49.89, 58.06±3.91 and 59.33±3.73ml/min/1.73m2 respectively. There was significant difference (0.001) in mean eGFR calculated by three different formulae. Majority of children (73%) had subnormal GFR (<90 ml/min /1.73 m2). There was a significant difference in GFR ≥90ml calculated by US compared to OS (0.025) and by SHID with OS (0.04) in children below two years and no difference in children above two years. But there was no difference in other categories of eGFR calculated by either of formula in both age groups. Conclusion: We found a significant difference in eGFR in ranges above 90 ml/min/1.73 m2 by US compared to OS as well as by SHID with OS in children below two years and no difference in children above two years. Also, there was no difference in GFR categories below 90 ml/min /1.73 m2 calculated by either of formula in both age groups. So, we may conclude that either of formula can be used in clinical practice for eGFR in mild to severe renal dysfunction in severely malnourished children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the extent and nature of low-income parents’ interactions with other parents and staff at childcare centres, despite the potential for these interactions to provide emotional, informational, and instrumental support. This study interviewed 51 parents at three childcare centres in low-income neighbourhoods in New York City. Twenty-six per cent of parents reported talking with other parents at drop-off and pick-up, and another 35% reported meeting with parents outside the centre in addition to talking with them at the centre. Parents’ extent of interaction was related to how long they spent at drop-off and pick-up, their participation in centre activities, and their sociability in general. All parents reported interacting with teachers and administrators, and described them more often than other parents as good sources of information and advice. We discuss the implications for parents and centre-based childcare providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The paper presents the findings on the information needs and behaviour of parents whose children exhibit a range of autism spectrum disorders. Beside literature review on the topic, it brings the findings of a study conducted in the Osijek-Baranya County (Croatia). Method. The study utilized a semi-structured interview format. Analysis. The analysis includes 13 interviews in total. The interview transcripts were used as the data for qualitative analysis. Results. The results demonstrate which information needs parents of children with autism spectrum disorders have before and in various stages upon finding out that the development of their child is not compliant with regular developmental norms. The results also reveal what kind of information parents seek and which information sources they use while seeking information related to autism spectrum disorders as well as what parents do and which barriers they face when searching for and evaluating information. Conclusion. The research results show that prior to the initial suspicion of an autism spectrum disorder, parents often lack information and knowledge on the disorder and its possible manifestations in the child's behaviour, which is reflected in late and hampered determination of disorder symptoms, therapy and rehabilitation. The information that parents seek relates to public services and support, therapy and rehabilitation, proper education for the child, relevant institutions, professional assistance in the childcare and immediate responses to daily problems. They feel confused because the sources of information they use offer different solutions. The closing section of the paper offers some recommendations for further research as well as their implications in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate scientists have developed and refined climate change models on a global scale. One of the aims of these models is to predict the effects of human activities on climate, and thus the delivery of information that is useful to devise mitigation actions. Moreover, if they can be properly downscaled to a regional and local level, they might be useful to deliver support for adaptation actions. For example, they may be used as an input for the better design of the features of buildings in order to make them resilient to climate modification, e.g., able to passively control heat flows to produce comfortable indoor conditions not only in the present climate, but also in future climate conditions. Taking into account the future weather scenarios that show an increase in the global temperature and climate severity, a likely consequence on building energy use will be a substantial shift from space heating to space cooling, and potentially uncomfortable thermal conditions during the summer will became a major challenge, both for new and existing buildings. In this paper, a deep energy retrofit of a child care centre located in Milan (Italy) is analysed on the basis of future weather scenarios; the analysis aims to identify to what extent choices that are made nowadays on the basis of a typical meteorological year may succeed to provide acceptable energy and indoor environmental performance throughout the future decades. The analysis confirms that climate change might require the installation of active cooling systems to compensate for harsher summer conditions over a long-term horizon, however, in the mid-term, passive cooling strategies combined with envelope refurbishment may still guarantee thermally comfortable conditions, and they will reduce energy cooling needs when active cooling is eventually installed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the ways early childhood teachers co-regulate children’s activities, behaviour and emotions in various socio-emotionally challenging situations and how teachers identify the co-regulation strategies they use in these situations. The data consist of 31 video episodes of different socio-emotionally challenging situations among children aged 2–5 years in day-care activities. The data also include stimulated recall interviews conducted with the teachers ( N = 8). Based on the video episodes, the video data are analysed by exploring co-regulation strategies that the teachers use in challenging situations. Interview data are analysed by comparing teachers’ descriptions of co-regulation strategy use to the co-regulation categories formed in the video analysis. The results of this study show that teachers engage in co-regulation during day-care activities. They use various strategies and combine these when they encounter challenges, particularly favouring activity-related strategies instead of emotion-related strategies. Furthermore, the results indicate that the teachers are, to some extent, aware of their co-regulative strategy use, but they could benefit from training that would increase their awareness of different strategies that potentially support children’s self-regulation in socio-emotionally challenging early childhood contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National reforms introduced into the early childhood education and care sector across Australia have created a requirement for each service to appoint an ‘educational’ leader to provide curriculum direction to ensure that children achieve quality care and education to lead to positive outcomes. Leadership in the early childhood has often been contested and complex, but the addition of a new leadership for building pedagogy and practice has created additional complexities. This paper reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative research study investigating how a small number of educational leaders working in long day care settings in urban Australia perceive their role. The study identified that these educational leaders came to the position unwillingly and felt poorly prepared and supported to meet the challenges presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the prosociality of four-year-old girls and boys in childcare centres. More specifically, it aims to measure gender differences in prosociality among children, based on three sources and methods of evaluation: (1) the early childhood educator's (ECE) perception (perceived prosociality), (2) the children's own responses to hypothetical interpersonal problem-solving situations (expressed prosociality) and (3) observation of the children's prosocial behaviour during symbolic play with a peer (observed prosociality). In line with many studies in this field, the results show that girls are perceived by their ECEs as being more prosocial than boys. However, analyses of the data on expressed prosociality and observed prosociality did not reveal a significant gender effect. These results are discussed with respect to the influence that differential perceptions based on gender have on the assessment of children's prosociality. Some possible explanations for this gender gap, particularly in educational contexts, are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We aimed to identify factors associated with the not adjusting of babies to daycare, such as, baby's temperament, parents-baby relationship and beliefs and practices about alternative care. Participants were four families whose babies entered into daycare between 10 and 12 months of age and were removed by not adjusting as evaluated by their parents. Interviews were applied during pregnancy, and when the baby was three, eight and twelve months old. Qualitative content analysis indicated that the most relevant factors to understand the not adjustment were related to dynamics of parents-baby interaction, like: feelings related to separation and the way that parents experienced daycare center entrance. The results highlight the importance of promoting the acceptance of parents-baby separation in transition to daycare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Well-designed screening assessment instruments that can evaluate child development in public daycare centers represent an important resource to help improve the quality of these programs, as an early detection method for early developmental delay. The Ages and Stages Questionnaire, 3rd edition (ASQ-3), comprises a series of 21 questionnaires designed to screen developmental performance in the domains of communication, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, problem solving, and personal–social ability in children aged 2 to 66months. The purpose of the present work was to translate and adapt all of the ASQ-3 questionnaires for use in Brazilian public child daycare centers and to explore their psychometric characteristics with both Classical Test Theory and Rating Scale analyses from the Rasch model family. A total of 18 Ages & Stages Questionnaires — Brazilian translation (ASQ-BR) questionnaires administered at intervals from 6 to 60months of age were analyzed based on primary caregiver evaluations of 45,640 children distributed in 468 public daycare centers in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The results indicated that most of the ASQ-BR questionnaires had adequate internal consistency. Exploratory factor analyses yielded a one-factor solution for each domain of all of the ASQ-BR questionnaires. The only exception was the personal–social domain in some of the questionnaires. Item Response Theory based on Rating Scale analysis (infit and outfit mean squares statistics) indicated that only 44 of 540 items showed misfit problems. In summary, the ASQ-BR questionnaires are psychometrically sound developmental screening instruments that can be easily administered by primary caregivers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Unlike some of its continental European neighbours, Britain failed to lay down the foundations of a publicly provided childcare system in the 1960s and 1970s, despite the pressure of major structural change in the form of the increasing employment of mothers with young children and strong evidence as to the benefits of early years care and education for child development. By 1980, both nursery education and day nursery care were being increasingly confined to children in deprived areas. The article pays particular attention to the ideas of civil servants and ministers about childcare and shows the extent to which the former were determined to defend the status quo in the context of weak political will. It is argued that the history of childcare during these two decades illustrates the importance of first and foremost the strong assumptions that underpinned belief in the male breadwinner model family, whereby men took primary responsibility for earning and women for care, and second, the British welfare model, focused on poverty and the poor. At the end of the 1970s, demand had so far outstripped supply that reliance on the private and voluntary sectors became inevitable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A survey of licensed, faith-based, child daycare programs was conducted in Metropolitan Cleveland, Ohio, to explore the parents' satisfaction, preferences, and their perception of staff competence as well as quality of services rendered. Sixteen daycare programs and 74 parents were represented in this study. Previous research has analyzed parents' satisfaction based on curricular issues, educational background of staff, and staff ratio. However, there is a need to determine parents' perceptions and preferences as related to the scope of this study. Sixty-one percent of the respondents indicated that people who are devoted to their faith are more effective or much more effective as human service providers as compared with others. Sixty-nine percent indicated some level of preference for a child care worker who was a person of faith if they had a choice. Eighty percent indicated that they believed that the daycare workers were knowledgeable and skillful as human service workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Early nonmaternal child care, for at least some portion of the week, is now the reality for most families in the United States. Ongoing debates surrounding what these changes mean for our society have focused on the possible negative consequences of extended nonmaternal care and the potential impact of such arrangements on children''s later development. The NICHD-Early Child Care Research Network (ECCRN) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development has made great strides toward addressing methodological limitations in previous research through a series of landmark examinations of child functioning from transition to school through 15years-of-age. The primary goal of this commentary is to put the child care findings into a broader developmental, social, and political context by reframing the discussion to move beyond the current daycare debate and consider implications for social policy and research agendas. Given that daycare has become a normative social institution, we first consider what the research findings mean for the healthy social–emotional and cognitive growth of children. Second, we articulate the implications of the data for social interventions to improve those outcomes. Finally, we address the issue of what political changes are necessary to produce those improvements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

According to Bates (1989), the concept of temperament is applied when we refer to children, adolescents or adults, especially when we want to know more about a person's activity, mood or emotional responses. Thus, temperament is a set of individual traits, with biological origins, present from early childhood, showing some kind of continuity over time. Assuming that the assessment of temperament is informative of a child's functioning, it isrelevantto have valid instruments to collect this kind of data. The studies presented in this paper are part of a broader research project that aims to understand the development of children aged from 0 to 60 months. More specifically, the two studies generally aim to validate the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ1) for 13 and 24 months of age for the Portuguese population, using mothers as informants. The first sample consisted of 289 infants aged between 11 and 20 months (Study 1) and the second sample comprised 398 children aged between 21 and 32 months (Study 2). Data from the two samples wascollected in nurseries and day-care services in northern Portugal (convenience samples). During data collection, in addition to completing the ICQ, mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire with demographic information about themselves, their child and their pregnancy. The specific goals of this study were to evaluate the psychometric properties - construct validity and internal consistency - of the two versions of this instrument. Results from both studies show that factorial solutions were both appropriate for these versions of ICQ for13 months and for 24 months. In addition, levels of internal consistency of the dimensions obtained are generally adequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES PARENTS' and carers' experiences of accessing quality long day care in northern regional Australia. The data was gathered in 2009, after the collapse of ABC Developmental Learning Centres (herein referred to as ABC Learning) and before the implementation of the National Quality Framework, and provides a snapshot of respondents' experiences at this key moment of transition in the long day care landscape. In communities often characterised by distance from friends and family, fluctuating economic growth and limited services for those outside the mainstream community, the experience of many parents and carers was of a childcare landscape that was unresponsive to their unique needs. More broadly, this research provides policy-makers with insight into the material implications of a childcare policy environment that encouraged over-reliance on the 'market' to provide accessible, quality long day care services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well-educated staff consists of multidimensional experts, and this staff is one of the strengths of the Finnish day-care system. The aim of this article is to clarify the development of the expertise of those early childhood educators who have qualified as kindergarten teachers. The data consisted of the early educators’ stories (n = 80) of their growth towards expertise. The analysis was carried out as content analysis. As the results, four key factors in the process of growth towards expertise were created. According to the informants, personal life history, education, work experience and personal attitudes towards work had been the most influential factors in the process of growth towards their expertise. The working environment both facilitated and hindered the growth of the expert. It is possible to foster educators’ professional growth with an individual development plan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigated the association between physical activity facilities at childcare (e.g., play equipment) and physical activity of 2- and 3-year olds. Observations of physical activity intensity were performed among 175 children at 9 childcare centers in The Netherlands, using the OSRAC-P. The physical activity facilities were assessed for indoors and outdoors separately, using the EPAO instrument. Regular (single-level) multivariate and multilevel linear regression analyses examined the association of the facilities and child characteristics (age and sex) with children's activity levels. Various physical activity facilities were available in all childcare centers (e.g., balls). Riding toys and a small playing area were associated with lower indoor physical activity levels. Outdoor physical activity levels were positively associated with the availability of portable jumping equipment and the presence of a structured track on the playground. Portable slides, fixed swinging equipment, and sandboxes were negatively associated with outdoor activity levels. In addition, the 3-year old children were more active outdoors than the 2-year olds. In conclusion, not all physical activity facilities at childcare were indeed positively associated with children's activity levels. The current findings provide concrete leads for childcare providers regarding which factors they can improve in the physical environment to facilitate children's physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Children are sensitive to indoor environmental pollution. Up until now there has been a lack of data on air quality in child day care centers. Objectives: The aim of this study is to document the indoor environment quality of Paris child day care centers by repeated measurements, and to compare pollutant levels in child day care centers with levels in Paris dwellings. Methods: We selected 28 child day care centers frequented by a random sample of babies who participated in the PARIS birth cohort environmental investigation, and visited the child day care centers for one week twice in one year. Biological contaminants assessed were fungi, endotoxin, dust mite allergens, and chemical pollutants: aldehydes, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Relative humidity, temperature, and carbon dioxide levels were measured simultaneously. A standardized questionnaire was used to gather information about the buildings and their inhabitants. Results: Airborne endotoxin levels in child day care centers were higher than those found in Paris dwellings. Dust mite allergens in child day care centers were below the threshold level for sensitization in the majority of samples, and in common with dwelling samples. Penicillium and Cladosporium were the most commonly identified genera fungi. The child day care center indoor/outdoor ratio for most chemical pollutants was above unity except for NO2, the levels for NO2 being significantly higher than those measured in homes. Conclusion: Chemical and biological contamination in child day care centers appears to be low, apart from endotoxin and NO2. Failure to take child exposure in child day care centers into account could result in an overestimation of children''s exposure to other pollutants. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, consideration is given to a problem often experienced in relation to courses offering psychodynamic understanding to front-line workers with troubled clients - the complexity for the student in taking the learning 'home' in a productive manner and the potential isolation of the student in, or alienation from, their workplace. A model of course delivery is described in which an active three-way partnership between student, course and workplace is fostered which enhances the students' learning, enables the workplace to benefit more fully from the course and enhances the effectiveness of the course in improving service to the ultimate client - the service user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores parental and childcare staff perceptions of quality across alternative childcare governance structures in Australia. A total of 21 childcare staff currently working within both 'non-profit' and 'for-profit' long day care centres were interviewed. In addition, 20 interviews with parents of children attending community-based, independent-private and corporate chain centres were conducted. Significant differences between the quality perceptions of parent and staff cohorts were found. In addition, inter-group differences were also observed. The results tentatively suggest that both parents and staff attach importance to both structural (regulated and flexible) and procedural elements of childcare service delivery--although parental age and caregiver experience appear to moderate the levels of importance assigned to identified quality dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of hygiene routines and characteristics of the daycare centre (DCC) on sickness absence in preschool children. Background: In Sweden most children attend daycare outside home during daytime. Daycare outside home results in cognitive and social gains for the children, but it also increases the risk of infectious symptoms. About 17%-30% of the respiratory tract infections in preschool children are due to the daycare stay. Factors of importance for sickness absence in DCC have been studied earlier but no study has had a broader focus on routines and daycare characteristics at the same. Methods: In 2003-2004 a national sample of 138 DCCs were visited by a study nurses who assisted in filling in a questionnaire on hygiene routines and daycare characteristics. Thereafter the DCC reported sickness absence on group level during two weeks in the autumn and two weeks in the spring. Findings: Sickness absence was about 10% both in the autumn and in the spring. Only about 10% of the DCC had written rules about hand washing in children but almost all had unwritten rules. More than 50 children at the DCC and no regular contact with the child health centres were found to be of significant importance for sickness absence using a multiple logistic regression model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since children's understandings of their environment are formed early in life, it is important to encourage their attitudes of respect and interest during their early childhood education. This paper describes an exemplary programme of "fearless science" in a rural, community-owned, childcare centre in New Zealand, catering, in their over-two year old section, for families with children from 3-5 years of age. Children are viewed as capable and competent scientists; their interests at home and at the centre are extended as in-depth investigations and their development of expertise in science processes is tracked alongside their maturing understandings of specific concepts and larger life themes. The supportive, rural community of learning is instrumental maintaining the teachers' efforts and the co-construction of science for children. The teacher-researchers documented activities and learning for participants in science investigations, from the identification of interest, to evolving activities and the learning accrued by children, teachers and their families. The importance of teachers' ongoing development of their own scientific understandings, in supporting the centre and the children's investigations, is highlighted. The framework for the research report is neo-Vygotskian activity theory, which encourages consideration of all aspects of the community, in teaching and in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS STUDY INVESTIGATES the quality of childcare centres in urban Australian communities designated according to different bands of Centre Location Demographics (CLD). Childcare centres were assessed using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale - Revised Edition (ECERS-R) and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale - Extension (ECERS-E). Statistically significant differences were seen in quality on total scores across the five CLD areas. On both scales, middle and partially disadvantaged areas were identified as having substantial disadvantage in terms of childcare centre quality. The provision, and potential impact, of quality regulation and accreditation for childcare centres is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the status of child care in rural and remote communities in Canada. She cites the challenges faced by rural areas in terms of child care, such as women working far away from day care centers, health and safety issues for child care facilities, and costs involved in operating child care programs. She relates her experience of being a working mother and having her daughter taken care of by a caregiver. She also comments on the child care subsidy program and operations of some day care centers.

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The authors assessed the quality of child care in a representative national sample of 42 child-care centers in the Netherlands and compared it with the quality of care that researchers have found using similar samples in 1995 (M. H. van IJzendoorn, L. W. C. Tavecchio, G. J. J. M. Stams, M. J. E. Verhoeven, & E. J. Reiling, 1998) and 2001 (M. J. J. M. Gevers Deynoot-Schaub & J. M. A. Riksen-Walraven, 2005). In the present study, results showed a low level of overall process quality for the 2005 sample, measured by the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised (T. Harms, D. Cryer, & R. M. Clifford, 2003) and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (T. Harms, R. M. Clifford, & D. Cryer, 1998). The present authors found a significant decline in process quality in comparison with the 1995 and 2001 findings. They concluded that, from an international perspective, the Netherlands has lost its leading position in child-care quality compared with that from 10 years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]