Does universally accessible child care protect children from late talking? Results from a Norwegian population-based prospective study

Abstract

This study examines the association between type of child care arrangement at age 1, 1.5 and 3 years and late talking (LT). The data were from 19,919 children in the population-based prospective Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and included information about child care arrangement, LT and a variety of covariates. Attendance at universally accessible child care at 1.5 and 3 years of age was related to a reduced risk for LT, even after controlling for covariates, including early social communication skills before entering child care. However, type of child care at one year of age did not predict LT. Children attending centre care full-time at age three years showed less LT than children attending centre care part-time, whereas no such relationship was found for children at age 1.5 years or for children attending family day care. The results indicate that high-quality universal child care protects children from LT.