Teressa Ramey

• ITT Education Services, Inc.

In this paper, we identify major paradoxes that have emerged from randomized controlled trials and longitudinal studies of diverse groups of young children with identified disabilities and risk conditions. We concentrate on the first three years of life because these coincide with a period of rapid changes in brain structure and function as well as...

Introduction: The Abecedarian Project was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that tested the effects of 5 years of early education combined with social and health supports on learning and cognitive development in infants from high-risk environments. This article provides a reflective review of its key findings from 50 years along with results from...

The Abecedarian Approach is an early intervention and contains a broad-spectrum adult/child curriculum. The Approach has been studied in three longitudinal randomized controlled trials in the USA, starting in 1972 and continuing today. Recent research studies in multiple countries have examined the Abecedarian Approach during the first three years...

Does early exposure to cognitive and linguistic stimulation impact brain structure? Or do genetic predispositions account for the co-occurrence of certain neuroanatomical phenotypes and a tendency to engage children in cognitively stimulating activities? Low socioeconomic status infants were randomized to either 5 years of cognitively and linguisti...

Sustaining Early Childhood Learning Gains - edited by Arthur J. Reynolds January 2019

This paper places the Abecedarian Approach in theoretical and historical context and reviews the results from three randomized controlled trials that have tested an experimental protocol designed to prevent cognitive disabilities and their social consequences. Results affirm that cognitive disabilities can be prevented in early childhood and subseq...

In the section "Ages 39-45 Outcomes," an error was made by providing details from my ongoing collaborative research with colleagues on neuroanatomical effects (Farah et al 2017) and social decision-making (Luo et al 2017).

Families, communities and societies influence children's learning and development in many ways. This is the first handbook devoted to the understanding of the nature of environments in child development. Utilizing Urie Bronfenbrenner's idea of embedded environments, this volume looks at environments from the immediate environment of the family (inc...

Adult (age 30) educational, economic, and social-emotional adjustment outcomes were investigated for participants in the Abecedarian Project, a randomized controlled trial of early childhood education for children from low-income families. Of the original 111 infants enrolled (98% African American), 101 took part in the age 30 follow-up. Primary in...

Summarized short- and long-term benefits based on 10 randomized controlled trials of early intervention designed to offset known social and biological risk factors for poor intellectual development (e.g., intergenerational poverty, low levels of parental education and intelligence, unstimulating parent–child interactions, poor nutrition, low birthw...

The extent to which early educational intervention, early cumulative risk, and the early home environment were associated with young adult outcomes was investigated in a sample of 139 young adults (age 21) from high-risk families enrolled in randomized trials of early intervention. Positive effects of treatment were found for education attainment,...

this chapter is about the forces that are changing our conceptions of education and about how one research program in North Carolina has been pursuing new educational practices to assist the intellectual development of children from poor and undereducated families conceptual model for early intervention / components / program evaluation (PsycINFO...

Adult benefits for participants in Project CARE were compared with those of the Abecedarian Project, a closely related randomized study of early childhood educational intervention for children from low-income families who were at risk of developmental delays and school failure. CARE replicated Abecedarian's young adult treatment-related educational...

65 families with children at risk for cognitive difficulties were randomly assigned at the time of the child's birth to 1 of 3 groups, 2 intervention and 1 control. For the most intensive intervention group, family education was combined with a center-based educational day-care program; the less intensive intervention group received the home-based...

Child and mother outcomes are reported for the Abecedarian Project, an early childhood education, pediatric healthcare, and family support program for high-risk children and their mothers. Three randomized intervention conditions for at-risk participants were compared to a control condition. Randomized control group participants received family sup...

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The current study analyzed health and academic achievement in a large database of former Head Start children who participated in the National Public School-Head Start Transition Demonstration Study (NTDS) as they entered kindergarten in 1992 and progressed to third grade. Results showed most former Head Start children were in good health in both ki...

The number of immigrants in the United States is at an all time high, yet psychologists have largely ignored the domain of immigrant health. This article considers 1 aspect of immigrant health, risk for pediatric injury. A sample of over 5,000 5-year-old children from impoverished families was studied; approximately 13% had immigrant mothers. Child...

Children's experiences prior to kindergarten entry are correlated with degree of cognitive development and school readiness as measured by standardized assessments of cognitive and linguistic performance. Children from economically poor and undereducated families are at elevated risk for lack of school readiness due to less knowledge and skill. Thi...

Two factors were considered as predictors of children's risk for unintentional injury: (a) children's temperamentally difficult behavior patterns and (b) parenting. Along with hypotheses to replicate previous univariate effects, it was hypothesized that active, involved parents with sufficient time resources might reduce injury risk among temperame...

Little is known about the mental health and related special education outcomes of children served by Head Start upon their entrance into public school. However, it seems clear that of the 4 major disability categories (speech-language impairment, emotional disturbance, mental retardation, and learning disability), Head Start children are most often...

Most studies of gifted students have looked at already identified groups, often convenience samples. This study takes a more epidemiological approach. Of the 5,400 children in the National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration group Project tested at the end of third grade, the highest achieving 3% (N = 162) were selecte...

Children in Head Start are at risk for school learning or behavioral problems. While Head Start has decreased special education placement, there has been little systematic data until recently on identification of children in disability categories following preschool. In this study, two cohorts of 6,162 children across 30 sites were followed through...

In the Abecedarian Project, a prospective randomized trial, the effects of early educational intervention on patterns of cognitive and academic development among poor, minority children were examined. Participants in the follow-up were 104 of the original 111 participants in the study (98% African American). Early treatment was full-time, high-qual...

Child and mother outcomes are reported for the Abecedarian Project, an early childhood education, pediatric healthcare, and family support program for high-risk children and their mothers. Three randomized intervention conditions for at-risk participants were compared to a control condition. Randomized control group participants received family sup...

Although children in Head Start are at risk for emotional or behavioral problems, little is known about their later need for special education. There is evidence that children at risk for emotional disturbance are underidentified or misidentified in other special education categories. We examined special education identification rates for Head Star...

The world of school has changed dramatically in the last two generations, for many reasons, including cultural and linguistic diversity; great changes in family lifestyles; wide disparities in funding for schools; the prevalence of preschool education; and new educational practices for children with disabilities. Noting that the requirements of pre...

Comments on D. K. Detterman and L. A. Thompson's (see record 1997-30052-007 ) article regarding special education. The authors restate that, according to Detterman and Thompson, the goals of special education are: (1) raise the mean level of performance, and (2) reduce the standard deviation of performance, or both. Reasons that this assertion negl...

Underidentification of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) appears to be a particular problem for children from low-income families. In the current study, two cohorts of 3,694 second-grade children across 30 sites were screened for EBD as part of a larger study on Head Start transition. At-risk status for EBD was determined by developing two s...

Comments on D. K. Detterman and L. A. Thompson's (see record 1997-30052-007 ) article regarding special education. The authors restate that, according to Detterman and Thompson, the goals of special education are: (1) raise the mean level of performance, and (2) reduce the standard deviation of performance, or both. Reasons that this assertion negl...

What constitutes an appropriate diagnostic workup for children with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) varies in both school and clinic settings. Current definitions of EBD suggest that a symptom checklist should be required, but there is some disagreement about what constitutes a functional impairment and what role out-of-school assessments s...

From a database generated by the multi-site National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Project, a subsample of the 154 children with the highest academic achievement was drawn from the 5,142 non-handicapped participants from English-speaking homes with relatively complete data collected in Spring of first grade. Thei...

This paper presents a conceptual framework that has guided three randomized, controlled early intervention trials designed to improve cognitive development and social competence in high-risk young children from birth to 3 years of age. Two of the projects (Abecedarian and CARE) enrolled infants from economically and socially low-resource families a...

For 4 decades, vigorous efforts have been based on the premise that early intervention for children of poverty and, more recently, for children with developmental disabilities can yield significant improvements in cognitive, academic, and social outcomes. The history of these efforts is briefly summarized and a conceptual framework presented to und...

This article presents information from interviews and questionnaires administered to 4,582 kindergartners who were former Head Start participants and their primary caregivers. Also, students' kindergarten, first-, and second-grade teachers rated their academic performance. Most children (74%) had extremely positive perceptions of all aspects of sch...

Although Head Start has a mandate to serve children with disabilities as at least 10% of its population, few systematic data are available on identification of children in various disability categories in the years immediately following their preschool experience. In the study reported here, two cohorts of 4,161 children across 30 sites were follow...

Although Head Start has a mandate to serve children with disabilities as at least 10% of its population, few systematic data are available on identification of children in various disability categories in the years immediately following their preschool experience. In the study reported here, two cohorts of 4,161 children across 30 sites were follow...

For 4 decades, vigorous efforts have been based on the premise that early intervention for children of poverty and, more recently, for children with developmental disabilities can yield significant improvements in cognitive, academic, and social outcomes. The history of these efforts is briefly summarized and a conceptual framework presented to und...

This longitudinal study of 161 African American children from low-income families examined multiple influences, including early childhood interventions and characteristics of the child and family, on longitudinal patterns of children's cognitive performance measured between 6 months and 8 years of age. Results indicate that more optimal patterns of...

Long-term intellectual and academic benefits related to early childhood educational intervention were found in a sample of students from low-income families (98% African American). The subjects were randomly assigned to preschool and school-age treatment conditions in a study design that permits a comparison of outcomes in students with preschool t...

The Infant Health and Development Program was an eight-site randomized controlled trial of comprehensive early intervention for low birthweight, premature infants during the first 3 years of life in which intellectual development was an outcome of major importance. At 24 and 36 months, but not at 12 months, higher Mental Development Index and IQ we...

Recent findings from three separate studies support and extend a large and growing body of early-intervention research literature spanning 30 years. The literature is consistent in demonstrating positive developmental outcomes as a result of intensive early intervention for children of low-income and undereducated families. New analyses confirm tha...

Follow-up data, obtained 4-7 years after intervention ended, are presented for the Carolina Abecedarian Project, an experimental study of early childhood educational intervention for children from poverty families. Subjects were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 intervention conditions: educational treatment from infancy through 3 years in public school...

Follow-up data, obtained 4–7 years after intervention ended, are presented for the Carolina Abecedarian Project, an experimental study of early childhood educational intervention for children from poverty families. Subjects were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 intervention conditions: educational treatment from infancy through 3 years in public school...

This paper describes long-term intellectual and academic outcomes of the Carolina Abecedarian Project, a study of the effects of intensive early intervention for children of poverty-level families. Participants in the program were 59 girls and 52 boys nominated by local social welfare departments and prenatal clinics. At or prior to birth, children...

Recent positive findings from three early educational intervention programs designed to prevent mental retardation as well as to improve school readiness and educational progress were summarized. Evidence was presented to show that without early intervention, children of low-IQ mothers are particularly at-risk for poor intellectual outcomes and tha...

This article presents a conceptual framework for thinking about the health and development of young children. The discussion of theory is followed by a description of how home visiting, as a process, can be used to improve the health and develop- ment of young children within their many domains of functioning. The authors refer to the Olds and Kitz...

The Infant Health and Development Program was an eight-site randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of early intervention to enhance the cognitive, behavioral, and health status of low birth weight, premature infants. The 377 intervention families received for the first 3 years of life: (1) pediatric follow-up, (2) home visits, (3) parent...

Traditional, authoritarian and progressive, democratic beliefs about child rearing and education, and self-directing and conforming values for children were contrasted in parents of 126 children entering kindergarten. Eighty-three parents were socioeconomically disadvantaged; their children were at risk for mild mental retardation and school failur...

Partners, a curriculum emphasizing adult-child interactions, or partnering, was developed in the mid-1980s at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center and was first used in the Infant Health and Development Program, a 3-year longitudinal intervention study in eight cities that involved premature, low birthweight (LBW) infants. The first par...

The need for a coordinated national policy on family support in the home is discussed. First, the history of home visiting programs is reviewed. Then, recommendations for practice, training, and research in family support programs are presented. A discussion of the impact of new federal initiatives on family support programs and research demonstrat...

65 families with children at risk for cognitive difficulties were randomly assigned at the time of the child's birth to 1 of 3 groups, 2 intervention and 1 control. For the most intensive intervention group, family education was combined with a center-based educational day-care program; the less intensive intervention group received the home-based...

We estimated the effects of an experimental educational day care program on the intellectual development of preschoolers from 86 high-risk families in a randomly allocated longitudinal study. At six through 54 months of age, the IQs of experimental program children ranged from 7.9 to 20.1 points higher than those of control children when maternal m...

The effects of early educational intervention upon socioeconomically disadvantaged children's attainment of the cognitive stage of concrete operations was assessed using the Concept Assessment Kit-Conservation (CAK). The test was administered longitudinally to 86 low-SES children at ages 5,6, and 7, and to random cross-sectional samples of more adv...

The Infant Health and Development Program is an eight-site clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy of a comprehensive early intervention in reducing the developmental and health problems of low-birth-weight (≤2500 g) premature (≤37 weeks) infants. Nine hundred eighty-five infants, stratified by site and weight (≤2000 g or 2001 to 2500 g),...

When the concept of intervention is applied to human development, the goal is usually to enhance functioning or to prevent some unwanted condition. During the past 20 years, the United States has committed itself to an early intervention position for young children who are socio-economically, educationally, or physically disadvantaged. This article...

This study examined the language at age 5 of socioeconomically disadvantaged children who had been randomly assigned at birth to a language-enriched day care program with a parent education component, a parent education program without a language-enriched day care, or no treatment. The interventions were administered between the ages of 3 months to...

The relationship between the occurrence of otitis media during the first 3 years of life and cognitive, academic, and classroom performance during the third year of elementary school was evaluated in 44 socioeconomically disadvantaged children. The children attended a research day-care program where their otitis media experience and psychoeducation...

The degree to which intellectual development can be enhanced by systematic early educational intervention, and the relative power of early versus later intervention as a preventive measure against mild retardation and academic failure, were the central issues tested in the Carolina Abecedarian Project. The project was designed for infants and child...

This study focuses on school performance in a sample of 90 children identified at birth as being at high risk for school failure based on social and economic variables. Hie high-risk children were randomly assigned in infancy to preschool intervention or a control group. At kindergarten, children were again randomly assigned to a school-age interve...

This paper describes a comprehensive educational program for preschool children and their families. The model, named the Carolina Approach to Responsive Education, is a multidisciplinary approach to child and family services derived from a general systems theory of development. This educational approach is the result of a longitudinal research and...

the question of the effectiveness of early intervention or compensatory education for infants and children from socially disadvantaged families has been investigated in many ways by many social scientists over the past 25 years this chapter will summarize what is known about the efficacy of early education by carefully analyzing several exemplary...

The relationship between the occurrence of otitis media with effusion during the first 3 years of life and subsequent verbal and academic performance was examined in 61 socioeconomically disadvantaged children who attended a research day-care program. Study children were participants in a longitudinal study of child development in which the number...

The effects of preventive education and birth order on IQ scores of 95 economically disadvantaged children at risk for retarded intellectual development were studied. Experimental first- and later-born children participated from birth in a 5-year programme of systematic educational intervention. An equal number of children served as controls and re...

The benefits of providing free educational day care from birth to children of single teen-age mothers were examined in a 4 1/2 year longitudinal study. Analysis of the data indicated that the children benefitted intellectually from the program scoring significantly higher than controls on a general cognitive index. Mothers had an increased likeliho...

This study sought to determine whether variations in intensity of early educational intervention are related to different patterns of mental development during the first three years of life. Sixty-four high risk children were randomly assigned at birth to a more intense treatment condition (Educational Daycare Plus Family Education) or a less inten...

The predictive efficiency of Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) with a sample of infants from low-income families at-risk for developmental retardation was assessed. The home environments of 51 infants were assessed with the HOME at 6 and 18 months. Multiple discriminant functions composed of the six HOME subscale...

Longitudinal mental test scores for 54 educationally treated disadvantaged preschool children at high-risk for nonbiologically based mild mental retardation and 53 control children were compared. The educationally treated children were in a child-centered prevention-oriented intervention program delivered in a daycare setting from infancy to age 5....

This paper reviews the results which have been obtained from a longitudinal experiment in early education designed to prevent mild mental retardation in high‐risk families. Test of cognitive development indicate that risk frequently becomes manifest deficits by the second year of life but that systematic and intense early education can prevent that...

Children at risk for sociocultural mental retardation were studied longitudinally from birth to 4 yrs of age. Maternal IQs were assessed before the children's births, and children's IQs and home environments were assessed at regular intervals during the 1st 4 yrs of life. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to separate the contributions of...

This review examines eighteen exemplary prevention-oriented early intervention programs designed for high-risk and normal infants. The target populations, the form of the program delivery, and the content of the curriculum are described. Issues in the design and methodology of such programs are discussed. The review also summarizes continuing and d...

Discusses criteria for the selection of appropriate psychoeducational instruments to assess child status and to evaluate program effectiveness in prespecified domains of psychological functioning. Standardized tests can identify a measure that has previously established reliability and validity for assessing a particular construct. They can be used...

This article reviews children's intellectual response to four major programs concerned with the prevention of developmental retardation that have used experimentally adequate research designs. Results indicate that it is feasible to prevent retardation in high-risk samples using a variety of educational formats and that intellectual response to tre...

Craig T. Ramey and David MacPhee reply to Diane E. Papalia and Sally Wendkos Olds' comments (see record 2006-06548-088 ) on Ramsey's review (see record 2006-06561-016 )the books, A Child's World: Infancy Through Adolescence. 2nd ed by Diane E. Papalia and Sally Wendkos Olds (1979); Child Development and Personality. 5th ed by Paul Henry Mussen, Joh...

Reviews the book, The Dynamic Assessment of Retarded Performers: The Learning Potential Assessment Device, Theory, Instruments, and Techniques by Reuven Feuerstein, Ya'acov Rand, and Mildred B. Hoffman (1979). Reuven Feuerstein's book, The Dynamic Assessment of Retarded Performers, represents a new paradigm in intellectual assessment. Perhaps the b...

In previous works, information contained on standard U.S. birth certificates was linked to intelligence, academic achievement, and social adjustment in first grade for a statewide random sample. The present screening effort was concentrated on a sample that was already considered to be at high but still variable levels of risk. The families of the...

This report presents continuing longitudinal data of a natural experiment in which fetally malnourished infants and their controls were randomly assigned to 2 environments differing in intellectually supportive characteristics. Whereas a previous report of these infants from 3 to 24 months of age provided evidence supporting the bidirectionality of...

The Functional Maternal Concern of mothers for their infants was assessed (with an Index derived from Caldwell's Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment.) when 36 children, heterogeneous with respect to social status, were 6- and 18-months-old. Scores on this Index were related to the mother's IQ and education, as well as to certain...

Mother-infant dyads (N = 27) were seen as part of a longitudinal study of lower-socioeconomic-status infants at high but varying risk for mild mental retardation. A 20-min unstructured interaction session was videotaped in a laboratory setting when the infants were 6 months old. Transcriptions were made of mothers' speech to their infants. Measures...

Reviews the books, A Child's World: Infancy Through Adolescence. 2nd ed by Diane E. Papalia and Sally Wendkos Olds (1979); and Child Development and Personality. 5th ed by Paul Henry Mussen, John Janeway Conger, and Jerome Kagan (1979); and Child Psychology: A Contemporary Viewpoint. 2nd ed by E. Mavis Hetherington and Ross D. Parke (see record 198...

The social interactions of 60 mother-infant pairs were observed for 25 min in a seminaturalistic setting when the infants were 6 months old and again at 20 months. 46 of the infants were termed at high risk for later school failure due to the socioeconomic situations of their families. Half of these high-risk infants had been randomly assigned to a...