Carolina Abecedarian Project and the Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE), United States, 1972-1992 (ICPSR 4091)

Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)

Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection

Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

The Carolina Abecedarian (ABC) Project and the Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE) projects consist of two consecutive longitudinal studies on the effectiveness of early childhood educational intervention for children at high risk for developmental delays and school failure. Combined, the two studies test the hypothesis that child care, home visit, and home school resource interventions can enhance cognitive and academic outcomes for children at risk for school failure due to factors such as poverty, low maternal IQ, or low parental education. These studies provide the only experimental data regarding the efficacy of child care interventions that began during early infancy and lasted until the child entered kindergarten. In addition, the data allow for tests of the efficacy of intervention during the primary grades.

Study Design View help for Study Design

The Abecedarian Project is a prospective randomized trial with participants from low-income families either participating in the planned "treatment" groups or serving as untreated controls. Essentially, three educational treatments were provided: educational child care from six weeks to school entry, home visit from six weeks to school entry, and home school resource services during the child's first three years of school. They varied in terms of intensity and orientation. The child care treatment was essentially child-centered and offered the most intensive exposure to education. It involved the child receiving child care at the child development center from infancy until entry to kindergarten. The home visit and home school treatments were less intensive and were family-oriented, emphasizing the role of the parent as a change agent in the child's development. All have been followed from birth to young adulthood. The study recruited children born between 1972 and 1977. At entry to school, half of the children within each of the two randomized preschool groups were randomly assigned to receive a home school resource teacher program during the first three years of elementary school.

Children recruited for Project CARE (Carolina Approach to Responsive Education), however, were born between 1978 and 1980 and randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: child care plus home visits, home visits only, or control. All Project CARE children assigned to either the child care plus home visit or home visit only groups also received the home school resource teacher treatment during the first three years of elementary school.

Participants were tested based on four different measurement scales: Maternal measures, quality of the family environment, cognitive assessment, and academic achievement. The cognitive assessments included:

• The Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 3, 6, 9, 12, and 18 months,
• The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale at 24, 36, and 48 months,
• The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities at 30, 42, and 54 months,
• The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence at 60 months, and
• The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) at 6.5, 8, 12, and 15 years.

Some of the tests were administered in only one study for a particular age. Included was the Mental Development Index (MDI) at 3 and 9 months and WISC-R at 15 years (Abecedarian only). Some achievement tests such as the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) were administered in the fall and spring of the first two years of public school (kindergarten and first grade if the child was at grade level both years) for the Abecedarian Project. The Woodcock-Johnson was administered in the fall and spring of the Abecedarian child's third year of school, in the summer following their seventh and tenth years of school, in the fall and spring of the Project Care child's first three years of school, and in the summer following their seventh year of school.

Sample View help for Sample

In the Abecedarian study, 109 of 122 participants agreed to their random assignment and enrolled a child. In one family with twins, one sibling was admitted, giving 111 children in the base sample. In the CARE sample, 64 of 65 eligible families agreed to their random assignments. The sample included two sets of twins giving a base sample of 66 children born to 64 families. The combined original base sample thus consisted of 177 children born to 173 families. Subsequently, one Project CARE child died and was replaced with no data added to the database. The archived data file thus contains 176 subjects, 111 from ABC and 65 from CARE.

Time Method View help for Time Method

Universe View help for Universe

Children at risk for school failure due to factors such as having a teenage mother, parents with less than a high school education, and families with very low incomes who lived in or around a small city in the Southeast United States.

Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation

Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

Variables in the collection are related to the measurements and assessments taken by participants. The maternal measure includes variables such as marital status, maternal and paternal age, education, and family socioeconomic status. Some variables were extracted from school records for respondents. The majority of variables relate to respondent scores on various individually-administered cognitive and academic achievement assessments (see Study Design).

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

Year 3 response rate: 85%

Year 7 response rate: 92%

Year 10 response rate: 94%

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

Scales utilized in this collection include:

• The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI)
• Inventory of the Home Stimulation
• Bayley Scales of Infant Development
• McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R)
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
• Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT)
• Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-educational Battery

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2004-12-08

Version History View help for Version History