The Development of Cognitive and Academic Abilities

The project participants were poor, minority children. The original sample included 111 participants and the follow-up included 104 participants. The sample was 98% African American, 59 girls and 52 boys, and all were born to low-income families. Children were randomly assigned to the treatment group and the control group. The treatment group participated in a project comprised of early educational treatment that was full-time, of high quality (eight hours per day, five days per week, for 50 weeks per year), and for children from infancy to age five; average infant age when entering the program was 4.4 months. Transportation was provided when needed. Low teacher:child ratios ranged from 1:3 to 1:6. Teachers received extensive in-service training. The curriculum promoted cognitive, language, perceptual-motor, and social development. Older children curriculum focused more on language development and preliteracy skills. Cognitive test scores were collected between the ages of three and 21 years. Academic test scores were collected from eight to 21 years of age.

Findings were that children showed higher scores on cognitive and academic tests wi

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, Head Start, child development day car, and Pre-Kindergarten consisted of low-income, African American families in segregated neighborhoods; these were compared to preschools with religious or institutional affiliation. Families needed to be receiving welfare benefits or qualify as the working poor by federal definition, to attend these programs. Teachers identified children for the longitudinal study. Of those nominated as average, 21 were selected (13 were African American). Descriptive data from observations yielded qualitative information. Documents showed children's written work and transcripts from audio-taped teacher and student talk also provided information. Each case study was analyzed and contrasted. Findings showed that in income-eligible preschools the curricula and pedagogy showed a limited perception of the child as a learner. This was demonstrated by the fact that children were provided with less access to print, fewer opportunities to be literate, and less opportunities for listening to or discussing relevant literature. Thus it was concluded that poor and minority children are taught to practice a different type of literacy with limited experiences that are less connected to either personal or communit
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1370
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)