Describe the main features of effective early intervention programs, providing an example of one such program.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A variety of early intervention programs have been developed for children living in persistent poverty. Because stressful home environments undermine their ability to learn, these children are likely to show gradual declines in intelligence test scores and to achieve poorly when they reach school age. In center-based intervention programs, children receive educational, nutritional, and health services in an organized child-care or preschool program. In home-based interventions, a skilled adult visits the home and teaches parents how to stimulate a young child's development. In most programs of either type, participating children score higher than untreated controls on mental tests by age 2. The earlier intervention begins, the longer it lasts, and the greater its scope and intensity, the better participants' cognitive and academic performance throughout childhood and adolescence.
One example of an effective center-based early intervention program is the Carolina Abecedarian Program, which began in the 1970s. Infants from poverty-stricken families, ranging in age from 3 weeks to 3 months, were randomly assigned to either a treatment group or a control group. Treatment infants were enrolled in full-time, year-round, high-quality educational child care through the preschool years; there they received simulation aimed at promoting motor, cognitive, language, and social skills and, after age 3, literacy and math concepts, with special emphasis on rich, responsive adult-child verbal communication. All children received nutrition and health services, so the primary difference between treatment and control children was the intensive child-care experience. By age 12 months, treatment children scored higher in IQ, an advantage they sustained until last tested, at age 21.