Infant Health and Development Program for Low Birth Weight, Premature Infants: Program Elements, Family Participation, and Child Intelligence

A randomized experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of Even Start, a federally supported family literacy program providing early childhood education, adult education, parenting education, and joint parent-child literacy activities to children and parents from low-literate families. The evaluation of 18 Even Start projects followed 463 families for 2 years and found no statistically significant or educationally important impacts on Even Start families when they were compared with control families on child literacy outcomes, parent literacy outcomes, or parent-child interactions. The study concludes that Even Start projects were able to properly implement family literacy programs, and the observed lack of effectiveness is attributed to a combination of 2 factors: (a) a lack of full participation on the part of families and (b) instructional services that may be ineffective because of the curriculum content or the instructional approach.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of a Family Literacy Program on Low-Literate Children and Their Parents: Findings From an Evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program.

Pierre¹,

Ricciuti²,

Rimdzius³

2005

“…Gender of child was evenly split, with 50% girls. In the sample of 493 used in the analyses, 57% educational child-care program at a child development center in the 2nd and 3rd years, and bimonthly parent group meetings in the child's 2nd and 3rd years (Ramey et al, 1992). of mothers were African American and 43% were White.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development.

Linver¹,

Brooks‐Gunn²,

Kohen³

2002

610

471

A variety of family processes have been hypothesized to mediate associations between income and young children's development. Maternal emotional distress, parental authoritative and authoritarian behavior (videotaped mother-child interactions), and provision of cognitively stimulating activities (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment [HOME] scales) were examined as possible mediators in a sample of 493 White and African American low-birth-weight premature infants who were followed from birth through age 5. Cognitive ability was assessed by standardized test, and child behavior problems by maternal report, when the children were 3 and 5 years of age. As expected, family income was associated with child outcomes. The provision of stimulating experiences in the home mediated the relation between family income and both children's outcomes; maternal emotional distress and parenting practices mediated the relation between income and children's behavior problems.

“…The Early Head Start evaluation, for example, found that parenting and social-emotional developmental outcomes were strongest for Black children and that families experiencing three risk factors (e.g., single parenthood, receiving public assistance, teen parenthood) showed stronger effects than families with either fewer or more risk factors (Love et al, 2002). Within the early intervention literature, stronger results have also been reported for more intensive programs measured as hours of contact, part-day versus full-day, total years of intervention, and extent of compliance with program standards (Campbell & Carmey, 1994;DeSiato, 2004;Love et al, 2002;Ramey et al, 1992;Reynolds et al, 2001). For these reasons, we examined differential pre-K effects by family income (using free lunch eligibility as a proxy for family income) and racial-ethnic group of the children and by their enrollment in half-or full-day programs.…”

Section: Available Research On Pre-k Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Universal Pre-K on Cognitive Development.

Gormley¹,

Gayer²,

Phillips³

et al. 2005

545

359

In this study of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program, the authors relied on a strict birthday eligibility criterion to compare "young" kindergarten children who just completed pre-K to "old" pre-K children just beginning pre-K. This regression-discontinuity design reduces the threat of selection bias. Their sample consisted of 1,567 pre-K children and 1,461 kindergarten children who had just completed pre-K. The authors estimated the impact of the pre-K treatment on Woodcock-Johnson Achievement test scores. The authors found test impacts of 3.00 points (0.79 of the standard deviation for the control group) for the Letter-Word Identification score, 1.86 points (0.64 of the standard deviation of the control group) for the Spelling score, and 1.94 points (0.38 of the standard deviation of the control group) for the Applied Problems score. Hispanic, Black, White, and Native American children all benefit from the program, as do children in diverse income brackets, as measured by school lunch eligibility status. The authors conclude that Oklahoma's universal pre-K program has succeeded in enhancing the school readiness of a diverse group of children.