The Breadth of Impacts from the Abecedarian Project Early Intervention on Cognitive Skills. Issue 2 (3rd April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pages, Remy; Protzko, John; Bailey, Drew H.
• Is Part Of: Journal of research on educational effectiveness. Volume 15:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 243
• Page End: 262
• Publication Date: 2022-04-03
• Subjects: Early childhood intervention -- RCT -- cognitive skills -- measurement invariance -- long-term impact; Education -- Research -- Periodicals; Education -- Evaluation -- Periodicals; Education -- Methodology -- Periodicals; 371.422
• DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2021.1969711
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1934-5747

Abstract

Abstract: Early life interventions impacting cognitive abilities are most often followed by post-treatment fadeout. Some have hypothesized that persistence is unlikely when gains are specific to trained skills and distinguishable from impacts on general cognitive ability (classically modeled as a hierarchical factor, so-called psychometric g ). Using measurement invariance testing and multiple-indicators multiple-causes models, we investigated impacts on IQ subtests from the Abecedarian early childhood intervention ( n = 107). We found that (1) observed impacts on IQ scores from age 5 to age 21 were consistent with persistent positive effects on g ; (2) subtest-specific variance that was differentiable from changes on g did fade. Together, these findings indicated that Abecedarian early impact persisted across a range of cognitive skills, providing some evidence for the hypothesis that breadth and persistence of impacts from educational interventions are related.