The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) is a comprehensive longitudinal study initiated by the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to answer questions about the relationships between child care experiences, child care characteristics, and children's developmental outcomes.
Children and their families began to be enrolled in 1991 from ten locations across the United States. The major goal of the study is to examine how differences in child care experiences relate to children's social, emotional, intellectual, and language development, and to their physical growth and health.