The Abecedarian Project

The Abecedarian Project demonstrated that young children who receive high-quality early education from infancy to age five do better in reading and math and are more likely to stay in school longer, graduate from high school, and attend a four-year college. Children who participated in the early intervention program posted higher cognitive test scores and tended to wait longer to have their first child.

Conducted by Dr. Craig Ramey, one of the nations leading early childhood researchers, this was the first study to track participants in an early learning program from infancy to age 21. Based in North Carolina, this study tracked 111 low-income African-American families. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive full-time early learning intervention services starting at infancy; the other received no educational services.