Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - According to a new study released this week, the better the child day care, the more likely that the child going there will be smarter as they become teenagers.

The study was released this week by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and focused in on how the quality of day care can actually have an impact on the intelligence of a child.

What they found was that kids who went to a high-quality day care were able to show major benefits in terms of being smarter than other kids as they went through high school.

Researchers were able to directly link the quality of day care to the level of intelligence of these same kids as they become teenagers and turned into adults.

Kids who were in a high-quality day care were said to be smarter based on academic tests, as well as cognitive tests right up through high school.

These same kids were also said to be more well-behaved than those who were in a low-quality day care.

The quality of the care also had a major impact on the personality of the children.

Kids in a low-quality day care were more likely to take risks as teenagers, and be more impulsive.

The day cares that were of the highest-quality were those who had a great deal of teacher-student interaction. This means that the kids received a lot of attention from their caretakers.

On top of that, these high-quality day cares also helped promote and nurture the development of cognitive abilities.

With millions of kids now in day care all across the U.S., thsi study shows just how important it is to make sure your child is in a high-quality learning environment.

The study has been published in the journal Child Development.