7 ms·

A 20-year Follow-Up to an Early Childhood Stimulation Program in Jamaica

76 points by okfine 8y ago

sytelus 8y ago
Method: The stimulation intervention included weekly home visits by trained community health workers, who encouraged and instructed mothers on how to play and interact with their children. For the nutrition intervention, health workers distributed weekly nutritional supplements to homes, as well as additional cornmeal and skimmed milk powder to discourage sharing of the supplement with other family members. Result: Most notably, children who received stimulation achieved 0.6 more years of schooling, or 5.6 percent more schooling, than participating children who did not receive stimulation, and were nearly three times as likely to have had some college-level education.
- cuchoi 8y ago
  Methodology of evaluation: Randomized Control Trial
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  Am I missing something in the wide gap between those figures - Children who got intervention X stayed in school for ~7 months longer and were also three times more likely to start college The 5% more and the 300% more just seem wildly out of kilter (It kind of makes sense - if all your peers stop school at 16 and you stay for 7 months or more, suddenly getting to college is a much easier step.) I think i am just surprised by how surprised i am
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    As I mention below, the very large 200% increase in college attendance is more likely to suggest that this demographic group has extremely low college attendance rates than that the intervention has an extremely high impact. If you do your intervention and 2 out of 127 children enroll in a college when you would have expected 0.7, you've tripled the expected rate, but that was easy to do by chance. In this case, the sample size was presumably half that, around 64.
  - loblollyboy 8y ago
    It’s probably not just that they attended a little more, but that they were more on the ball when they were attending. I didn’t read the article tho
    - j45 8y ago
      A better quality metric might be emerging if so, instead of the usual # of butts in a seat, or hours per student.
      - pkAbstract 8y ago
        GPA
  - losvedir 8y ago
    Well the 5% is averaged over the whole group while the 300% is from a base rate of those who go to college. I haven't seen the data, so I don't know if this is the case, but one explanation is that this intervention works really well for some people, and not at all for others. Also, I think "3x more likely" means 200% more people. So the numbers could be something like: 100 participants, 5 would have gone to college. The social stimulation really benefited 10 kids. They, in turn, did years more schooling and went to college. 5% -> 15% college rate is 3x more likely, but the 10 kids' large increase in attendance was averaged out over the group of 100, so the overall increase was just 5%. Not saying this is the case, just showing a way those numbers could be plausible.
  - dalbasal 8y ago
    They're not comparable on the same scale. Say... Kids get 10.5 years schooling on average in neighborhood A. 12 years in neighborhood B. That is a 1.5 years or 15% difference. In a 12 grade system, this is the best possible result implying a 100% completion rate. Neighborhood A sends 10% of all kids to college. Neighborhood B sends 50% of all kids to college. That's a 500% difference. This example seems pretty plausible. A neighborhood where an average kid makes it halfway through 10th grade probably sends a lot fewer kids to college than a neighborhood with a 100% completion rate for grade 12.
    - lostcolony 8y ago
      This. Especially since if Jamaica is anything like the US, dropping out prior to age 16 is illegal.
- misterhtmlcss 8y ago
  Simply put this research at this stage proves nothing, however it could indicate an area requiring further analysis, but that's about it. "Correlation does not imply causation" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_cause_and_consequence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_cause_and_consequen... It's really easy to see that lots of reasons that aren't directly due to the program could have caused the changes. It could have been as simple as an expectation change amongst the parents, upon joining the program; how their children will perform better and therefore they did or it could have been the parents in the neighborhood most engaged in their children having a better life and when the opportunity to join the program became available they joined. Stuff like this is notoriously difficult to prove, but I'm hopeful and glad to see research is being done.
  - wojtekkru 8y ago
    "The original ECD program, which lasted two years, enrolled 127 stunted children aged 9-24 months. Researchers randomly assigned these children to one of four groups: a psychosocial stimulation intervention, a nutrition intervention, both interventions, or neither intervention (the comparison group)." That was my first thought too: the positive results could be effect of special attention and expectations (placebo effect). However comparing "both interventions" group with each single intervention group should address this.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
pastage 8y ago
Three times as likely to get college level education is amazing, children and parents really are the future.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > Three times as likely to get college level education is amazing To me this seems like a warning that the intervention is unlikely to have much effect as applied to society in general. Three times the likelihood of an impoverished Jamaican going to college isn't that impressive. On the other hand, if we accepted this assessment of impact in the terms being reported here, applying it to better-off people could lead to more than 240% of their children going to college! ...which again suggests that whatever's going on is probably better viewed in other terms.
  - emj 8y ago
    I do not understand you at all, you comment can be read as a fairly common statement around here: education for rich kids is not always a good thing. While the article is about how families that have time to value their young are much more likely to educate them. How can you compare these two outliers?
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      I'm saying "increase the likelihood of the child going to college by a factor of three" doesn't make a lot of sense as an evaluation of the impact of this intervention, for two reasons: - It's very easy to increase really small numbers by a factor of three, but this large percentage increase is not particularly meaningful. - Many demographics go to college at such high rates that it would be impossible to increase those rates by a factor of three. Since it's impossible, the intervention probably can't accomplish it.
      - paulsutter 8y ago
        Nobody here tried to extrapolate the 3x into a general rule, except you. Not sure why you’re upset by something only you are doing. Helping the less advantaged merits more of our attention than the well to do anyway.
airstrike 8y ago
Education should be society's #1 priority. I find it truly baffling that we have yet to agree on this -- or, if by some reason you think we have agreed, that we haven't acted on it.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Really? The #1 priority? Over keeping people fed and housed?
  - airstrike 8y ago
    Yes. People can feed themselves and afford housing if they're educated.
    - stretchwithme 8y ago
      Education is often used as a proxy for other things that actually benefit our lives. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. Certainly the kind of education being discussed matters. It can certainly be argued that children that sit in a classroom for 16 years may lose much of the spontaneity and natural desire to explore that they were born with. They might be a lot more passive, accept what is handed to them with less skepticism and fewer questions, be hesitant to try things without social proof, and may be ignorant of how the world actually works. They may be more likely to live in their heads and be less in touch with their own very real needs.
      - airstrike 8y ago
        > It can certainly be argued that children that sit in a classroom for 16 years may lose much of the spontaneity and natural desire to explore that they were born with. A lot of things can be argued, but not all can be substantiated. Even if I agreed that studying somehow harms children, that would only encourage society to rethink _how_ but not _whether_ to train children.
        8y ago
oz 8y ago
I'm pretty sure this study was mentioned in a recent episode of EconTalk, where the guest was talking about statistical significance, p-hacking, etc. I'm Jamaican, so I perked up when it came up.
pkAbstract 8y ago
I'm surprised that the psychosocial intervention was as effective as it was, however I expected the nutrition arm of the trial to fare better. I guess interacting with intelligent and engaging adults as a child really has long-term developmental benefits.
- wolco 8y ago
  nutrition is a relative concept. Cornmeal and skin milk are not going to produce amazing result by themselves.
  - pkAbstract 8y ago
    The cornmeal and skim milk was provided to the baby's family in order to discourage them from distributing the baby's formula: "The nutritional intervention (groups 2 and 3) consisted of giving 1 kg of formula containing 66% of daily-recommended energy (calories), protein, and micronutrients provided weekly for 24 months" The article implies that the families likely split the formula for multiple members, thus diminishing any effect it may have had on the baby's development.
gwern 8y ago
Another Heckman study. Oh, I thought this sounded familiar: http://andrewgelman.com/2013/11/05/how-much-do-we-trust-this-claim-that-early-childhood-stimulation-raised-earnings-by-42/ http://andrewgelman.com/2013/11/05/how-much-do-we-trust-this...

76 points by okfine 8y ago

Method: The stimulation intervention included weekly home visits by trained community health workers, who encouraged and instructed mothers on how to play and interact with their children. For the nutrition intervention, health workers distributed weekly nutritional supplements to homes, as well as additional cornmeal and skimmed milk powder to discourage sharing of the supplement with other family members. Result: Most notably, children who received stimulation achieved 0.6 more years of schooling, or 5.6 percent more schooling, than participating children who did not receive stimulation, and were nearly three times as likely to have had some college-level education.

cuchoi 8y ago
Methodology of evaluation: Randomized Control Trial
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
Am I missing something in the wide gap between those figures - Children who got intervention X stayed in school for ~7 months longer and were also three times more likely to start college The 5% more and the 300% more just seem wildly out of kilter (It kind of makes sense - if all your peers stop school at 16 and you stay for 7 months or more, suddenly getting to college is a much easier step.) I think i am just surprised by how surprised i am
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  As I mention below, the very large 200% increase in college attendance is more likely to suggest that this demographic group has extremely low college attendance rates than that the intervention has an extremely high impact. If you do your intervention and 2 out of 127 children enroll in a college when you would have expected 0.7, you've tripled the expected rate, but that was easy to do by chance. In this case, the sample size was presumably half that, around 64.
- loblollyboy 8y ago
  It’s probably not just that they attended a little more, but that they were more on the ball when they were attending. I didn’t read the article tho
  - j45 8y ago
    A better quality metric might be emerging if so, instead of the usual # of butts in a seat, or hours per student.
    - pkAbstract 8y ago
      GPA
- losvedir 8y ago
  Well the 5% is averaged over the whole group while the 300% is from a base rate of those who go to college. I haven't seen the data, so I don't know if this is the case, but one explanation is that this intervention works really well for some people, and not at all for others. Also, I think "3x more likely" means 200% more people. So the numbers could be something like: 100 participants, 5 would have gone to college. The social stimulation really benefited 10 kids. They, in turn, did years more schooling and went to college. 5% -> 15% college rate is 3x more likely, but the 10 kids' large increase in attendance was averaged out over the group of 100, so the overall increase was just 5%. Not saying this is the case, just showing a way those numbers could be plausible.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  They're not comparable on the same scale. Say... Kids get 10.5 years schooling on average in neighborhood A. 12 years in neighborhood B. That is a 1.5 years or 15% difference. In a 12 grade system, this is the best possible result implying a 100% completion rate. Neighborhood A sends 10% of all kids to college. Neighborhood B sends 50% of all kids to college. That's a 500% difference. This example seems pretty plausible. A neighborhood where an average kid makes it halfway through 10th grade probably sends a lot fewer kids to college than a neighborhood with a 100% completion rate for grade 12.
  - lostcolony 8y ago
    This. Especially since if Jamaica is anything like the US, dropping out prior to age 16 is illegal.
misterhtmlcss 8y ago
Simply put this research at this stage proves nothing, however it could indicate an area requiring further analysis, but that's about it. "Correlation does not imply causation" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_cause_and_consequence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_cause_and_consequen... It's really easy to see that lots of reasons that aren't directly due to the program could have caused the changes. It could have been as simple as an expectation change amongst the parents, upon joining the program; how their children will perform better and therefore they did or it could have been the parents in the neighborhood most engaged in their children having a better life and when the opportunity to join the program became available they joined. Stuff like this is notoriously difficult to prove, but I'm hopeful and glad to see research is being done.
- wojtekkru 8y ago
  "The original ECD program, which lasted two years, enrolled 127 stunted children aged 9-24 months. Researchers randomly assigned these children to one of four groups: a psychosocial stimulation intervention, a nutrition intervention, both interventions, or neither intervention (the comparison group)." That was my first thought too: the positive results could be effect of special attention and expectations (placebo effect). However comparing "both interventions" group with each single intervention group should address this.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

pastage 8y ago

Three times as likely to get college level education is amazing, children and parents really are the future.

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> Three times as likely to get college level education is amazing To me this seems like a warning that the intervention is unlikely to have much effect as applied to society in general. Three times the likelihood of an impoverished Jamaican going to college isn't that impressive. On the other hand, if we accepted this assessment of impact in the terms being reported here, applying it to better-off people could lead to more than 240% of their children going to college! ...which again suggests that whatever's going on is probably better viewed in other terms.
- emj 8y ago
  I do not understand you at all, you comment can be read as a fairly common statement around here: education for rich kids is not always a good thing. While the article is about how families that have time to value their young are much more likely to educate them. How can you compare these two outliers?
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    I'm saying "increase the likelihood of the child going to college by a factor of three" doesn't make a lot of sense as an evaluation of the impact of this intervention, for two reasons: - It's very easy to increase really small numbers by a factor of three, but this large percentage increase is not particularly meaningful. - Many demographics go to college at such high rates that it would be impossible to increase those rates by a factor of three. Since it's impossible, the intervention probably can't accomplish it.
    - paulsutter 8y ago
      Nobody here tried to extrapolate the 3x into a general rule, except you. Not sure why you’re upset by something only you are doing. Helping the less advantaged merits more of our attention than the well to do anyway.

airstrike 8y ago

Education should be society's #1 priority. I find it truly baffling that we have yet to agree on this -- or, if by some reason you think we have agreed, that we haven't acted on it.

cortesoft 8y ago
Really? The #1 priority? Over keeping people fed and housed?
- airstrike 8y ago
  Yes. People can feed themselves and afford housing if they're educated.
  - stretchwithme 8y ago
    Education is often used as a proxy for other things that actually benefit our lives. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. Certainly the kind of education being discussed matters. It can certainly be argued that children that sit in a classroom for 16 years may lose much of the spontaneity and natural desire to explore that they were born with. They might be a lot more passive, accept what is handed to them with less skepticism and fewer questions, be hesitant to try things without social proof, and may be ignorant of how the world actually works. They may be more likely to live in their heads and be less in touch with their own very real needs.
    - airstrike 8y ago
      > It can certainly be argued that children that sit in a classroom for 16 years may lose much of the spontaneity and natural desire to explore that they were born with. A lot of things can be argued, but not all can be substantiated. Even if I agreed that studying somehow harms children, that would only encourage society to rethink _how_ but not _whether_ to train children.
      - 8y ago

oz 8y ago

I'm pretty sure this study was mentioned in a recent episode of EconTalk, where the guest was talking about statistical significance, p-hacking, etc. I'm Jamaican, so I perked up when it came up.

pkAbstract 8y ago

I'm surprised that the psychosocial intervention was as effective as it was, however I expected the nutrition arm of the trial to fare better. I guess interacting with intelligent and engaging adults as a child really has long-term developmental benefits.

wolco 8y ago
nutrition is a relative concept. Cornmeal and skin milk are not going to produce amazing result by themselves.
- pkAbstract 8y ago
  The cornmeal and skim milk was provided to the baby's family in order to discourage them from distributing the baby's formula: "The nutritional intervention (groups 2 and 3) consisted of giving 1 kg of formula containing 66% of daily-recommended energy (calories), protein, and micronutrients provided weekly for 24 months" The article implies that the families likely split the formula for multiple members, thus diminishing any effect it may have had on the baby's development.

gwern 8y ago

Another Heckman study. Oh, I thought this sounded familiar: http://andrewgelman.com/2013/11/05/how-much-do-we-trust-this-claim-that-early-childhood-stimulation-raised-earnings-by-42/ http://andrewgelman.com/2013/11/05/how-much-do-we-trust-this...