This study controlled the SES(Socio Economic Status) in order to compare the influence of infants’ nonverbal communication ability and teachers’ sensitivity on the infants’ adjustment to child care centers.
For this study, data was collected 115 mothers with one-year-olds’(58 boys, 57 girls) and from 115 teachers from fourty-eight child care centers located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Provincet data. The collected data were analyzed by correlation analysis, hierarchical multiple regression analysis using the SPSS 23.0 program. The results of this study are as follows.
First, infants’ adjustment to child care centers showed a statistically significant relationship with infants’ nonverbal communication ability and teachers’ sensitivity. Second, among the variables explaining infants’ adjustment to child care centers, the effect of teachers’ sensitivity was higher than the effect of infants’ nonverbal communication ability.
This study confirmed that teachers’ sensitivity is a strong factor explaining infants’ adjustment to child care centers. We also emphasized the importance of the role of teachers, providing basic data on the development of education for child care teachers and education for improving sensitivity.