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Early Learning, Later Success: The Abecedarian Study
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Early Learning, Later Success: The Abecedarian Study
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Ann O'Leary's Files
Office of Policy Development, Domestic Policy Council, First Lady's issues
BOX 21 of 23
Early learning, late success: the abecedarian study
The foundation for child development working paper series
Childcare how do military and civilian center costs compare
Access to childcare for low income working families
See how we grow a report on the statistics of parenting
See how we grow
Resource guide on children's environmental health
1998 annual report on school safety
Title IX initiative
Expanding youth horizons
Mentor the national mentoring partnership
Working fathers new strategies for balancing work and families
America, vital interest in global health
Economic report of the president
Education conference roll ins
Lifetime live launch
Pre-Oscar video after school alliance
A shared vision: 30 years of strengthening families
Rock a bye baby
Partnership for a drug free America
New American high schools; schools at the leading edge of reform
Conflict resolution for youth
The children's aid society, community schools PSA
Kids in danger: selected television programs
Guns and teens
Making after school count
Pax video project
ENCLOSURES FILED OVERSIZE ATTACHMENTS 19594
NARA # 16798
A Full Report will be ready 2/28/00
Early Learning, Later Success: The Abecedarian Study
Early Childhood Educational Intervention for Poor Children
Executive Summary
Background
Poverty in early childhood has long-lasting negative consequences for cognitive development
and academic outcomes, as shown by numerous studies. Comparisons among different groups of
school children find that poor children fare worse academically then those raised in more
advantageous circumstances. Poor children begin to lag behind in the earliest school years,
suggesting that they enter school not adequately prepared for success.1
In an effort to overcome the negative academic odds for poor children, early childhood
education has been provided both in rigorous, University-based model programs and at the state
and national levels. Such endeavors were generally based on the theory that providing early
intellectual stimulation would enhance cognitive development, thereby allowing children to enter
school better prepared to learn. This should in turn increase the probability of early school
success, lead to later scholastic success, and eventually, result in vocational achievement and
successful social adaptation in adulthood.
Unfortunately, few early childhood programs have been sufficiently well controlled to permit
scientists to evaluate the extent to which long-term outcomes are attributable to the program
itself. Low numbers of participants or high attrition among samples reduced confidence in
findings from some University-based programs. Many state and local programs lacked the degree
of scientific control necessary for firm conclusions.
From pooled long-term results of other early childhood programs, investigators concluded
that such programs were associated with reductions in the degree to which treated children were
placed in special education and retained in grade during the public school years Short-term
gains in cognitive development were also found along with boosts in academic performance.
However, both kinds of gains tended to erode 3 to 6 years after participants entered school.
The Abecedarian Project differed from most other early childhood programs in that: 1) it
began in early infancy whereas other programs began at age 2 or older, and 2) treated children
had five years of exposure to early education in a high quality child care setting whereas most
other programs were of shorter duration.
The Abecedarian Project
The Abecedarian Project was a carefully controlled study in which 57 infants from low-
income families were randomly assigned to receive early intervention in a high quality child care
setting and 54 were in a non-treated control group. This degree of scientific control gives
investigators greater confidence that differences between the treated and untreated individuals
can be attributed to the intervention itself, rather than to differences among treated and untreated
families.
The treated children received full-time educational intervention in a high-quality childcare
setting from infancy through age 5. Each child had an individualized prescription of educational
activities consisting of "games" that were incorporated into his or her day. These activities
addressed social, emotional, and cognitive development but gave particular emphasis to
language.
The treated and untreated children were initially comparable with respect to scores on infant
mental and motor tests. However, from the age of 18 months and through the completion of the
child care program, children in the intervention group had significantly higher scores on mental
tests than children in the control group. Follow-up cognitive assessments completed at ages 12
and 15 years showed that the intervention group continued to have higher average scores on
mental tests. The treatment/control group gap narrowed but the trajectories did not converge.
Effect sizes remained moderate.
Treated children scored significantly higher on tests of reading and math from the primary
grades through middle adolescence. Effect sizes for reading were large; those for math were large
to moderate.
The investigators have now completed a young-adult follow-up assessment of study
participants. At age 21, cognitive functioning, academic skills, educational attainment,
employment, parenthood, and social adjustment were measured. One-hundred-four of the
original 111 infants (53 from the intervention group and 51 controls) were assessed.
Major Findings of the Young Adult Follow-Up Study
Young adults who received early educational intervention had significantly higher mental test
scores from toddlerhood through age 21 than did untreated controls. Averaged over the age span
tested, the mental test score effect size for treatment was moderate and considered educationally
meaningful.
Enhanced language skills in the children appears to have mediated the effects of early
intervention on mental test performance (i.e., cognitive skills).
Reading achievement scores were consistently higher for individuals with early intervention.
Treatment effect sizes remained large from primary school through age 21. Enhanced cognitive
skills appeared to mediate treatment effects on reading achievement.
Mathematics achievement showed a pattern similar to that for reading, with treated
individuals earning higher scores. Effect sizes were medium in contrast to the large effects for
reading. Again, enhanced cognitive functioning appeared to mediate treatment effects.
Those with treatment were significantly more likely still to be in school at age 21 - 40% of
the intervention group compared with 20% of the control group.
A significant difference was also found for the percent of young adults who ever attended a
four-year college. About 35% of the young adults in the intervention group had either graduated
from or were at the time of the assessment attending a four-year college or university. In contrast,
only about 14% in the control group had done so.
Young adults in the intervention group were, on average, one year older (19.1 years) when
their first child was born compared with those in the control group (17.7 years), although the
youngest individuals in both groups were comparable in age when their first child was born.
Employment rates were higher (65%) for the treatment group than for the control group
(50%), although the trend was not statistically significant.
Policy Implications
The importance of high quality, educational childcare from early infancy is now clear. The
Abecedarian study provides scientific evidence that early childhood education significantly
improves the scholastic success and educational attainments of poor children even into early
adulthood.
The Abecedarian study began treatment in early infancy, emphasizing the importance of
providing a learning environment for children from the very beginning of life. Every child
deserves a good start in an environment that is safe, healthy, emotionally supportive, and
cognitively stimulating.
Welfare reform means that, more than ever, poverty children will need early childcare. The
educational stimulus value of these early caregiving years must not be wasted.
Childcare officials should be aware of the importance of quality care beginning in infancy.
Quality care requires sufficient well-trained staff to ensure that every child receives the kind of
appropriate, individualized attention provided by the Abecedarian model.
Future research should concentrate on identifying the specific learning techniques most
effective for all groups and types of young children. More and more of America's children will
need out of home care. This is especially true for poor children. We must not lose this
opportunity to provide them the early learning experiences that will increase their chances for
later success.
Acknowledgements
The age-21 follow-up of the Abecedarian study was funded jointly by The Maternal and Child
Health Bureau of the Department of Health and Human Services (grant: MCJ-370632)
The National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education of the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement, Department of Education (OERI, grant: R306F960202)
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation (grants: 95-1796, 96-1752, 98-1047)
Earlier phases of the research were primarily funded by a series of grants from:
The Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Branch of the National Institutes of
Child Health and Human Development
The State of North Carolina
The findings of the Abecedarian Project do not necessarily reflect the views of the granting
agencies.
1. Alexander, K. L., & Entwisle, D. R. (1988). Achievement in the first 2 years of school:
Patterns and processes. Monographs of the Society
for Research in Child Development, 53 (Serial No. 218).
2. Lazar, I., Darlington, R., Murray, H., Royce, J., & Snipper, A. (1982). Lasting effects of early
education: A report from the consortium for
longitudinal studies. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 47 (Serial
No. 195).
Representative Articles:
Ramey, C. T., & Campbell, F.A. (1984). Preventive education for high-risk children: Cognitive
consequences of the Carolina Abecedarian
Project. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 88, 515-523. This article describes the child
care program in detail and presents findings
from cognitive testing of study participants from early infancy through age 54 months.
Ramey, C. T. & Campbell, F. A. (1991). Poverty, early childhood education, and academic
competence: The Abecedarian experiment. In A.
Huston (Ed.), Children reared in poverty (pp. 190-221). New York: Cambridge University Press.
This chapter describes a school-age
component of the project and presents findings from cognitive testing of study participants in the
primary grades of school.
Campbell, F. A. & Ramey, C. T. (1994). Effects of early intervention on intellectual and
academic achievement: A follow-up study of
children from low-income families. Child Development, 65, 684-698. In this article, results of
cognitive and achievement testing of study
participants at age 12 are presented.
Campbell, F. A., & Ramey, C.T. (1995). Cognitive and school outcomes for high-risk African-
American students at middle adolescence:
Positive effects of early intervention. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 743-772. This
article presents results of cognitive and
achievement testing at age 15 as well as data concerning grade retention and assignments to
special education.
Burchinal, M. R., Campbell, F. A., Bryant, D. M., Wasik, B. H., & Ramey, C. T. (1997). Early
intervention and mediating processes in
cognitive performance of children of low-income African American families. Child
Development, 68, 935-954. In this article, the
Abecedarian data are combined with a similar program called project CARE and the mechanisms
by which early intervention affected
cognitive performance are examined.
Ramey, C. T., Campbell, F. A., Burchinal, M., Skinner, M. L., Gardner, D. M., & Ramey, S. L.
(in press). Persistent effects of early
intervention on high-risk children and their mothers. Applied Developmental Science. In addition
to presenting results of child testing,
this article presents findings demonstrating the benefits of the availability of high-quality,
consistent child care for the mothers of children
in the Abecedarian study.
If you want to contact them:
This press release, graphics, biographies of the researchers, an executive summary of the
Abecedarian Age 21 Follow-Up Study, and other information may be found at <
www.fpg.unc.edu/~abc> This web site will open at 9 a.m. EDT on 10/18/99.
Dr. Frances Campbell may be reached at her office at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill: 919-966-4529. Her email address is: <[email protected]>.
Dr. Craig Ramey may be reached at his office at the University of Alabama: 205-934-8900. His
email address is <[email protected]>.
Requests for materials and questions may also be addressed to Dr. Elizabeth Pungello at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 919-966-6386. Her email address is
<[email protected]>