The Effect of a New Innovative Early
Childhood Intervention and Care Program on Child Strengths and Difficulties –
heterogeneous effects
Bente Jensen and Anders Holm University of Aarhus
Preliminary results
A New Innovative Early Childhood Intervention and Care Program
The ASP-project
The ASP Project: Methods and Design
• 3000 children in general day-care, randomized control at the institutional level in four municipalities (2005-2009)
• The program includes all groups of children; about 95% of all Danish children attend day-care
• Implemented by educated and non-educated staff, because that is common in DK
• Implemented in a determined and systematic manner and staff was encouraged to develop a detailed local curriculum based on concrete situations of the individual day-care (e.g. composition of children, staff’s preconditions etc.)
Jensen, B. and Holm, A. (2011)
“The Effect of a New Inclusive ECEC-intervention Program on Child Strengths and Difficulties” (to be published)
Definition of ASP Target Group
Socially disadvantaged children:
•
Children with a socially impaired background (predicted by poverty, unemployment among parents, short or no education, parents on welfare payment and/or difficult divorces).
•
Who have a risk of being involved in the child service system because of their poor socio-economical conditions .
•
Who may have a less developed brain compared to average level of development of children of that age.
•
Who may have less developed cognitive and social skills.
One hypothesis is that these children are at high risk of being excluded
from their peer’s community.
Empirical Background
International research showed that what works is:
An early effort (children from age 3) targeting children’s learning and cognitive development in day-care (e.g. Garber, 1988).
High-quality care (structure and process), i.e. well-educated staff, good staffing, systematic curriculum-based efforts with attention to socio-emotional and intellectual development (Currie & Neidell, 2007).
A combination of day-care program and parental involvement appeared to generate the greatest effect (e.g. Kaminski, 2007).
Parents may have difficulties utilizing offers from the day-care (e.g. Alderson, 2008).
Offers for parents that do not involve day-care may even have a directly negative effect (e.g. Roberts et al., 1989, Wasik et al., 1990, a new Clearinghouse
Review, VIDA 2011:02).
What is ASP?
ASP was inspired by international programs and followed the same parameters of quality (structure and process) and the same demands that staff works in a determined and systematic manner.
The purpose of ASP was to improve children’s socio-emotional competences (well-being) and learning (intellectual skills) through inclusive pedagogy.
ASP differed from international programs 1) by being for all children, 2) by
including educated and non-educated pedagogical staff, and 3) by combining a top-down and bottom-up approach.
ASP showed positive effects and based on this result we designed the VIDA project , which has just started and will run until 2013.
VIDA
– a knowledge-based effort for socially disadvantaged children (two model programs)
The purpose is:
To further develop theoretical and practical knowledge of activities that promote children’s learning and socio-emotional development
through an inclusive pedagogy, based on ASP results.
To further develop education and training of pedagogical staff to enhance staff’s systematic and determined work with socially disadvantaged children.
As a new initiative, VIDA compares a general pedagogical program (as ASP did) with the same program but supplemented with a parental
program
ASP, VIDA and Well-Known International Programs:
Similarities and Differences
All are model program experiments (RCT designs)
ASP project: 3000 children in general day-care, randomized control at the institutional level in two municipalities
VIDA project: 6000 children in general day-care, randomized control at the institutional level in four municipalities
The Perry Preschool program: 123 children, randomized control at the individual level
Abecedarian: 97 children, randomized control at the individual level
To sum up: ASP and VIDA have a large sample to test the success of interventions in general day-care. This is the main reason for the differences in design and method.
VIDA Summary
The research project ‘Knowledge-based Efforts for Socially Disadvantaged Children in Day-care’ (VIDA) explores the research question:
How can Danish general day-care improve socially disadvantaged children’s opportunities in life?
The project has been commissioned and is financed by the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs.
VIDA homepage: www.dpu.dk/vida
VIDA Project Manager: http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/bj@dpu.dk
Framing:
From Jensen and Holm (2011) we know there is a causal effect of an Danish early inclusive intervention has a small average effect.
We will now see whether this small average effect translate into larger effect for certain sub groups of kinder gardens.
How do we expect the intervention to work?
The intervention is supposed to aid children who are disadvantaged and excluded.
Therefore we expect that the intervention is especially beneficial in kindergartens where there are relatively many disadvantaged children.
How is socio-emotional competence developed and measured?
Through preschool teachers’ positive and sensitive care-giving (NICDH) Through social sensitive interaction with preschool teachers and parents
Through early interaction and friendships with peers/siblings in day-care and family
Children’s self-worth constitutes and is developed through social-emotional competences and positive relationships.
And measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (Goodman, 1997)
How do we measure whether a child is disadvantaged and excluded?
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) which has five domains:
1) emotional symptoms (5 items) 2) conduct problems (5 items)
3) hyperactivity/inattention (5 items) 4) peer relationship problems (5 items) 5) Pro-social behavior (5 items)
We imagine that the effect of the intervention works through the different domains of the SDQ. So kinder gardens with large fraction of children with emotional and conduct problems will benefit most from the intervention.
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
An aside: the SDQ and cognitive ability:
0
.02.04.06.08 .1
Density
0 10 20 30 40
Langauge test
0
.02.04.06.08 .1
Density
0 10 20 30 40
IQ test (CHIPS)
0.2.4.6
Density
-1 0 1 2
treatment after
0.2.4.6
Density
-1 0 1 2 3
treatment before
0.1.2.3.4
Density
-1 0 1 2 3
control before
0.1.2.3
Density
-1 0 1 2 3
control after
Kinder gardens with relatively few disadvantaged children
Kinder gartens with relatively many disadvantaged children
0.1.2.3.4.5
Density 0.1.2.3.4.5
Density
0 1 2 3
treatment before
0.1.2.3.4.5
Density
0 1 2 3 4
control before
0.2.4.6.8
Density
.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 0,3 0,35 0,4 0,45 0,5 0,55
SDQ
fraction of children below 25 percentile on emotional symptoms
conduct problems hyperactivity/inattention peer relationship problems Baseline
Treatment effect on conduct problems, hyper activity and peer relational problems conditional on the fraction of children with emotional symptoms
Conclusion:
Treatment effects are heterogeneous and depends on the pre-treatment fraction of children with different symptoms The more children with different symptoms the larger the treatment effect.
