Understanding the Mechanisms through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality skills from an experimental evaluation of the influential Perry Preschool program to analyze the channels through which the program boosted both male and female participant outcomes. Experimentally induced changes in personality skills explain a sizable portion of adult treatment effects

The added impact of parenting education in early childhood education programs: A meta-analysis

Many early childhood education (ECE) programs seek to enhance parents’ capacities to support their children's development. Using a meta-analytic database of 46 studies of ECE programs that served children age three to five-years-old, we examine the benefits to children's cognitive and pre-academic skills of adding parenting education to ECE programs for children and consider the differential impacts of: 1) parenting education programs of any type; 2) parenting education programs that provided parents with modeling of or opportunities to practice stimulating behaviors and 3) parenting education programs that were delivered through intensive home visiting. The results of the study call into question some general longstanding assertions regarding the benefits of including parenting education in early childhood programs. We find no differences in program impacts between ECE programs that did and did not provide some form of parenting education. We find some suggestive evidence that among ECE programs that provided parenting education, those that provided parents with opportunities to practice parenting skills were associated with greater short-term impacts on children's pre-academic skills. Among ECE programs that provided parenting education, those that did so through one or more home visits a month yielded effect sizes for cognitive outcomes that were significantly larger than programs that provided lower dosages of home visits

Gender differences in musical aptitude, rhythmic ability and motor performance in preschool children

Most of the preschool curricula involve integrated movement activities that combine music, rhythm and locomotor skills. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether there are any differences between boys and girls at the age of five concerning their musical aptitude, rhythmic ability and performance in gross motor skills. Ninety-five preschool children participated in the study (50 girls and 45 boys). The measures used were the Primary Measures of Music Audiation, the High/ Scope Rhythmic Competence Analysis Test and the Gross Motor Development test 2. The results revealed no significant gender differences in musical aptitude and gross motor skills performance, whereas girls outperformed boys in four of the six movements of rhythmic ability test. Considering that rhythmic competence is strongly inter-related with children's motor coordination, the concluding suggestion for the preschool physical education curriculum is to incorporate specific rhythmic activities (like Orff, Dalcroze and dance) in order to overcome the boys' performance deficiency. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd