Early Learning,
Later Success
THE ABECEDARIAN STUDY
Early Childhood Educational Intervention
Acknowledgments
The age- 21 follow- up of the
Abecedarian study was funded
jointly by:
➤ The Maternal and Child Health
Bureau of the Department of
Health and Human Services
( grant: MCJ370632)
➤ The National Institute on
Early Childhood Development
and Education of the Office
of Educational Research and
Improvement, Department of
Education
( OERI, grant: R306F960202)
➤ The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation
( grants: 95- 1796, 96- 1752, &
98- 1047)
Earlier phases of the research
were primarily funded by a
series of grants from:
➤ The Mental Retardation and
Developmental Disabilities
Branch of the National Insti-tutes
of Child Health and Hu-man
Development
➤ The State of North Carolina
These materials were prepared
with the help of a grant from
OERI.
The findings of the Abecedarian
Project do not necessarily reflect
the views of the granting
agencies.
Representative Articles
Ramey, C. T., & Campbell, F. A. ( 1984).
Preventive education for high- risk
children: Cognitive consequences
of the Carolina Abecedarian Proj-ect.
American Journal of Mental
Deficiency, 88, 515- 523. This article
describes the child care program
in detail and presents findings from
cognitive testing of study partici-pants
from early infancy through age
54 months.
Ramey, C. T., & Campbell, F. A. ( 1991).
Poverty, early childhood education,
and academic competence: The
Abecedarian experiment. In A. Hus-ton
( Ed.), Children reared in poverty
( pp. 190- 221). New York: Cambridge
University Press. This chapter
describes a school- age component
of the project and presents find-ings
from cognitive testing of study
participants in the primary grades of
school.
Campbell, F. A., & Ramey, C. T. ( 1994).
Effects of early intervention on intel-lectual
and academic achievement: A
follow- up study of children from low-income
families. Child Development,
65, 684- 698. In this article, results of
cognitive and achievement testing
of study participants at age 12 are
presented.
Campbell, F. A., & Ramey, C. T. ( 1995).
Cognitive and school outcomes for
high- risk African- American students
at middle adolescence: Positive ef-fects
of early intervention. American
Educational Research Journal, 32,
743- 772. This article presents results
of cognitive and achievement testing
at age 15 as well as data concerning
grade retention and assignments to
special education.
Burchinal, M. R., Campbell, F. A., Bryant,
D. M., Wasik, B. H., & Ramey, C. T.
( 1997). Early intervention and medi-ating
processes in cognitive perfor-mance
of children of low- income Afri-can
American families. Child Devel-opment,
68, 935- 954. In this article,
the Abecedarian data are combined
with a similar program called project
CARE and the mechanisms by which
early intervention affected cognitive
performance are examined.
Ramey, C. T., Campbell, F. A., Burchinal,
M., Skinner, M. L., Gardner, D. M.,
& Ramey, S. L. ( in press). Persis-tent
effects of early intervention on
high- risk children and their moth-ers.
Applied Developmental Science.
In addition to presenting results of
child testing, this article presents
findings demonstrating the benefits
of the availability of high- quality,
consistent child care for the mothers
of children in the Abecedarian study.
© 1999 Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
For more information on the Abecedarian Study
visit the website at www. fpg. unc. edu/~ abc