Disadvantaged Children Benefit More From Additional Programs

While studies have shown that children from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit from high-quality preschool programs, they would benefit even more if they had additional tutoring and mentoring during their elementary and high school years, according to research from the University of Chicago.

Systematic interventions throughout childhood and adolescence could sustain the early gains and build on them, according to the paper, “Investing in our Young People.”

“Childhood is a multistage process where early investments feed into later investments. Skill begets skill; learning begets learning,” says Dr. James Heckman, the author of the report.

The researchers studied data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth to estimate a model to predict the outcomes of children born to disadvantaged mothers when the children received a variety of extra learning assistance.

The study showed with early childhood intervention, high school graduation rates would increase to 65 percent and college enrollment to 12 percent. Participation in crime would decrease. Combining early childhood intervention with high school intervention would increase high-school graduation rates to 84 percent and college participation rates to 27 percent.

Although preschool can have an impact on improving cognitive skills, interventions later on can improve non-cognitive skills such as perseverance and self-control, the authors wrote.

Blacks sleep less than Whites, men sleep less than women, and the poor sleep less than the wealthy. These were the conclusions of a University of Chicago study published in a recent issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The study followed the sleep characteristics of 669 middle-aged adults and found White women slept the most, 6.7 hours a night, followed by White men at 6.1 hours, Black women at 5.9 hours and Black men at 5.1 hours. Higher income also was associated with more sleep.