Persistence and Fadeout in the Impacts of Child and Adolescent Interventions

Abstract

Many interventions targeting cognitive skills or socioemotional skills and behaviors demonstrate initially promising but then quickly disappearing impacts. Our paper seeks to identify the key features of interventions, as well as the characteristics and environments of the children and adolescents who participate in them, that can be expected to sustain persistently beneficial program impacts. We describe three such processes: skill-building, foot-in-the-door and sustaining environments. We argue that skill-building interventions should target “trifecta” skills – ones that are malleable, fundamental, and would not have developed eventually in the absence of the intervention. Successful foot-in-the-door interventions equip a child with the right skills or capacities at the right time to avoid imminent risks (e.g., grade failure or teen drinking) or seize emerging opportunities (e.g., entry into honors classes). The sustaining environments perspective views high quality of environments subsequent to the completion of the intervention as crucial for sustaining early skill gains. These three perspectives generate both complementary and competing hypotheses regarding the nature, timing and targeting of interventions that generate enduring impacts.

Estimating the Consequences of Norway’s National Scale-Up of Early Childhood Education and Care (Beginning in Infancy) for Early Language Skills

“…Furthermore, whereas most policy discussions in the United States are centered on preschool children, we believe these findings should provoke more conversation about the value of ECEC at scale for the younger children. Although our findings are limited to shorter term outcomes, with fade-out a legitimate concern (Bailey, Duncan, Odgers, & Yu, 2017), the present study increases evidence that nations can implement publically subsidized and regulated ECEC programs for very young children at scale with a potential benefit of narrowing achievement gaps.…”

Advancing values affirmation as a scalable strategy for mitigating identity threats and narrowing national achievement gaps

“…How did the delivery of several affirming 15-min writing activities in the seventh grade fundamentally change the academic outcomes and life chances of these students? The explanation for the long-term benefits conferred by values affirmation aligns well with a recent set of ideas that distinguish interventions and environments that tend to promote persisting impacts (3).…”

“…Although some policies and programs aimed at narrowing these gaps among children and adolescents have shown short-term benefits, these initial successes typically fade away over time (3). Why are these inequalities in our schools so persistent and seemingly intractable, and how did Goyer et al (4) find success when so many others have failed?…”

Programming experience promotes higher STEM motivation among first-grade girls

“…Interest can decrease over time if there are no opportunities to continue to reengage with that topic (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), so girls may need to become involved in longer-term programs to prevent them from losing interest in robotics and programming. Although interventions that target skill building tend to have effects that fade over time, interventions that target motivation have the potential to create longer-lasting educational benefits, especially when that motivation shapes students' self-concepts (Bailey et al, 2017;Cohen et al, 2006;Murayama et al, 2013). Researchers should also examine how these laboratory results could be scaled up into a larger-scale practical intervention to boost technology interest in young girls.…”