Mana, I take away quite a different message from that article. Combining the data from the U.S. and Norway, the evidence seems to suggest that there is no negative effect of being in a program that is nurturing, play-based, emphasizes social-emotional skills and fosters attachment of the child to a particular teacher.
(What has skewed the interpretations is the use of socio-economic status of the family as a proxy for the quality of the program. Hence the claim that "even high quality" programs have negative effects, without looking more carefully at differences between types of programs.)
On average, yes, but I think we're looking for unicorns given the prevailing North American commercial childcare model.
Practically speaking, I have difficulty swallowing these studies' results because I question the similarity between the groups studied and my family (and other families on the forum). I suspect parents on this forum are at the upper end of the distribution when it comes to mind-mindedness, empathy, and exhibiting prosocial/pro-secure attachment behaviours.
I've seen some attempts in studies to control for "maternal sensitivity", but that sort of measure is, IMO, an overly broad selection criterion. Now, if factors such as breastfeeding intensity, average intensity of parent-child contact, and average hours of one-on-one contact were accounted for, I would be more convinced.
