This article estimates the effect of school closures in the spring of 2020 on the math skills of primary school children in Italy, which was the first Western country hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, responding with a strict lockdown and total school closures through the end of the school year. Leveraging unique longitudinal data collected in the province of Torino, a large metropolitan area in northern Italy, we analyse the learning outcomes of two adjacent cohorts of pupils, the pre-Covid and the Covid cohort. The pandemic had a large mean negative impact on pupils’ performance in mathematics (−0.19 standard deviations). Learning loss was greater for girls and for high-achieving children of low-educated parents. Net of individual characteristics, the impact was harshest in schools with a disadvantaged social composition.
This paper investigates the impact of parenting courses on fragile families' time use with their children. Courses aimed at raising parental awareness of the importance of educational activities are offered in four Italian cities (Naples, Reggio Emilia, Teramo and Palermo) within the framework of the social program "FA.C.E. Farsi Comunità Educanti" and with the cooperation of the program "Con i Bambini" 2 . To conduct the impact evaluation 3 , we designed a randomized controlled trial involving random assignment of the families (mostly mothers). At the end of the intervention, we administered an assessment questionnaire both to the treatment group, which took the course, and to the control group, which did not. Comparing the outcomes, we find attending the course increased families' awareness of the importance of educational activities for children, the frequency with which they read to the child, and their desire to spend more time with the child.
Insertion guides are becoming popular for orthodontic mini-implant positioning. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the accuracy of two different mini-implant insertion guides, with or without pre-drilling, in a human cadaveric model. Maxillary casts of six fresh frozen specimens were digitized to create insertion guides. Sixty mini-implants were randomly inserted with full-arch or skeletonized guides, either with or without predrilling. Pre- and post-treatment CBCTs were superimposed using rigid registration. Transformation matrices of the planned and real positions were obtained, and distances at the mini-implant neck and apex, as well as the angular deviation, were calculated. The Kruskal–Wallis test was performed, followed by a post hoc test when indicated. Out of 60 inserted mini-implants, 46 could be evaluated. Of these, 10 initially assigned to no pre-drilling required this procedure due to very high bone density. Therefore, 32 implants were inserted with pre-drilling (n = 15 full-arch; n = 17 skeletonized) and 14 without (n = 7 full-arch; n = 7 skeletonized). The lowest mean deviation at the neck was 1.22 ± 0.6 mm, registered in the full-arch/pre-drilling group. The skeletonized/no pre-drilling group presented the lowest mean values at the apex, i.e., 1.72 ± 1.22 mm, as well as the lowest mean angular deviation, i.e., 8.23 ± 4.24°. Significant differences among groups were observed only at the neck, with higher mean deviation in the skeletonized/pre-drilling group than in the full-arch/pre-drilling one (p = 0.014). In conclusion, within the limitations of the study, rather high deviations between planned and real mini-implant positions were found. Further studies are needed on how to improve the accuracy within in vivo settings.
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