One examines how non-parental child care affects children's cooperation with adults and compliance with their wishes. Some have an academic focus, others have an enrichment focus, and still others have a recreational focus. They reflect not only diversity in curriculum focus but diversity in quality as well. Her project is also one of the first to link variables of after-school care with children's observed behavior. For example, it will determine how group size is important across different ages.
Children tend to drop out of formal after-school programs during fourth and fifth grade.
Vandell wants to determine why, and what that trend could predict about these children's later development. He sits down at a computer and turns it on. Soon, he is constructing interlinking tree-shaped structures on the computer screen. The sailor is not plotting a military maneuver, though. He is sharpening analytical skills that will be applied to a variety of everyday problems, ranging from electronics to automotive mechanics to construction.