The Abecedarian Approach in a Low-Resource Urban Neighborhood in Canada: An Impact Evaluation in a Child Care Setting

Abstract

Despite the best efforts, persistent educational gaps remain between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children when they begin school. This evaluation explores the impact of the Abecedarian Approach for early education on the language development of First Nations and non-First Nations children, living in a low-resource, urban neighborhood in Canada. A treatment group received the Abecedarian Approach in a child care center, supplemented by home visiting, and comprised 20 families with 41 children of whom 51% were First Nations. The control group comprised 27 families with 39 children of whom 46% were First Nations. The analyses presented explore child language outcomes at the end of the second year of participation and take account of child and family characteristics, as well as the baseline language scores. Results indicate that children in the treatment group had stronger language outcomes than the control group. While First Nations children in the treatment group had lower levels of language development than non-First Nations children, at baseline, both groups progressed at about the same rate. While the findings do not guarantee that achievement gaps would close during the school years, improved language development in the years before school is likely to be associated with better achievement during school. Keywords Abecedarian • Early childhood education • Language outcomes • Indigenous population • First Nations • Canada Résumé Malgré les efforts déployés, des écarts relatifs à l'éducation persistent entre enfants indigènes et non indigènes en début de scolarité. Cette évaluation explore l'impact de l'Abecedarian Approach pour l'éducation des jeunes enfants sur le développement du

Happy Talk: A pilot effectiveness study of a targeted‐selective speech–language and communication intervention for children from areas of social disadvantage

“…Interestingly, studies simultaneously engaging parents and early childhood educators are few (Greenwood et al, 2019), particularly when child language outcomes are measured. Stevens et al (2019) explored the impact of the Abecedarian approach on the language development of First Nations and non-First Nations children and found that the pre-intervention gap that existed between the two groups (on a norm referenced language measure) was completely closed by the end of the second year of the intervention.…”

“…Stevens et al. (2019) explored the impact of the Abecedarian approach on the language development of First Nations and non‐First Nations children and found that the pre‐intervention gap that existed between the two groups (on a norm referenced language measure) was completely closed by the end of the second year of the intervention.…”

Mental Health and Social Development Effects of the Abecedarian Approach

“…In contrast, under the control condition the non-FN children made slow progress and the FN children gained almost no ground. The gap between the FN treatment group and the non-FN control group at baseline was completely closed by year two of the study—at which point these two groups had identical scores [ 7 ].…”

“…The Abecedarian Approach has been implemented in multiple countries. The Approach has been adapted and used as a birth to age three or birth to age five program in Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, India, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Pakistan, Singapore, and Zambia [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Some of these uses were research studies while others were training and implementation applications.…”

Validación del protocolo de evaluación neuropsicolingüística del lenguaje oral, lectura y escritura (PRELEN) para niños escolares

“…La evaluación del lenguaje oral, la lectura y la escritura en población infantil ha tenido diversas miradas desde diferentes enfoques teóricos y procedimentales, que históricamente ha pretendido explicar la ontogenia y el desarrollo de estas áreas comunicativas en los niños (Aimacaña Toctaguano & Reinoso, 2022;Quintana Alonso, 2003;Stevens et al, 2019). La evaluación, en general, debe permitir establecer el desempeño de los sujetos, en cuanto a saberes y capacidades considerados necesarios para iniciar con éxito nuevos procesos de aprendizaje, pues se espera un adecuado desempeño de las funciones ejecutivas que son consideradas como un conjunto de procesos cognitivos, dentro de las que se encuentra el lenguaje (Delgado Reyes et al, 2022).…”