Previous research has suggested that childminded nursery-age children are severely disadvantaged in their language competency and social behaviour, and that they are therefore educationally handicapped from the earliest stage of their education. These handicaps have been attributed to the effects of being minded. This paper compares the performance of matched groups of minded and non-minded three- and four-year-old children on tests of language competency and social behaviour and finds no significant differences between the two groups.
Significant differences between expressive and receptive language scores are found for both groups and differences in language competency between the social classes are also noted.
The paper concludes that the supposed educational disadvantages of being childminded are not clearly established by the limited evidence available to date.
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