{"id":1853,"date":"2017-03-26T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-26T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=1853"},"modified":"2017-12-28T21:17:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T21:17:28","slug":"early-education-program-evaluation-differential-susceptibility-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/early-education-program-evaluation-differential-susceptibility-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Education Program Evaluation: \u201cDifferential Susceptibility\u201d to Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/AdobeStock_99365599_Credit.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1855 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/AdobeStock_99365599_Credit-1024x373.jpg\" alt=\"AdobeStock_99365599_Credit\" width=\"640\" height=\"233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/AdobeStock_99365599_Credit-1024x373.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/AdobeStock_99365599_Credit-300x109.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Show me the Money<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As most parents, teachers, and education policy folks know well, early childhood education is expensive. Whether federally-funded, state-funded, or family-funded, preschool and structured early care generally operate on a pretty tight budget. They also generally operate on pretty high hopes: academic achievement, personal growth, reduced delinquency, and much more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they should! As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, \u201cthere is no knowledge that is not power.\u201d We certainly need to maintain high expectations for youth to get the most out of their academic careers. As well, we should expect the programs that we invest in to set children up for the success that they promise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Show us the Results<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what happens when we don\u2019t see those hopes result in program outcome data; in particular, at the state- and federally-funded program level?<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we launch an investigation into what went wrong?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we take the money away?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we blame the teachers, or parents, or school districts?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The \u201cwhat now?\u201d of underwhelming achievement is a challenging road to venture down. For some context, check out my colleague Austin\u2019s recent blog post regarding a newly published study looking at the infamous <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/head-start-right-on-time\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fadeout effects<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Head Start preschools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unfortunately, questions of whom to blame have dominated much of the \u201cwhat now?\u201d conversation over the years. Yet some studies, like the one Austin discussed, are trending in a new, positive direction for developmental and educational research alike. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Let\u2019s Re-think \u2018Results\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This new genre of studies does two things. First, it looks at such factors as fidelity to a particular program\u2019s plan. Let\u2019s take Head Start as an example. Researchers will ask: how well and how often are Head Start\u2019s specialized strategies actually being implemented in classrooms?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Second, and most important, these studies don\u2019t stop there. Instead, they go on to broaden the idea of an <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">outcome<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to include measures of mental health and social growth, and the image of a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">learning environment<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to include the home and child care centers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Broadening what we think achievement is, and where we think learning happens, is an important movement. Of course, many developmental psychologists have been advocating for this broadening for years. Social psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, for example, began studying ways in which intra- and inter-person factors affect learning back in the 1970\u2019s. But the merging of research questions that focus on <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">individual context<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with research questions that focus on <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">school program evaluation<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is an exciting new empirical endeavor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Differential Susceptibility<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An endeavor that we stand to gain a lot from. One way that these new <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">context+program evaluation <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">research questions are making an impact is in studies of early achievement and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">differential susceptibility<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (DS).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DS is a theoretical model that aims to understand why some things affect some people differently. In developmental research, DS refers to children who are more behaviorally or biologically reactive to stimuli and, as a result, more affected by both positive and negative environments. [1]<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Study 1<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s look at a longitudinal study conducted by researchers at Birkbeck University of London. [2] They investigated the effects of early rearing contexts on children of different temperaments. The following data was collected from 1,364 families: <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>predictive measures<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parents reported the temperament of their child at 6 months (general mood, how often they engage in play behavior, how well they transition to a babysitter, etc.);<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parenting quality (i.e. maternal sensitivity) was assessed at 6 and 54 months during laboratory and home observations;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">quality of child care (e.g. daycare) was assessed at 6, 15, 24, 36, and 54 months via observation<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b><i>outcome measures<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">academic achievement, behavior problems, teacher-child conflict, academic work habits, and socio-emotional functioning were assessed regularly between 54 months and 6th grade<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Results showed that children who had a <\/span><b>difficult temperament<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in infancy were more likely than children who didn\u2019t to benefit from good parenting and high-quality childcare. They also suffered more from negative parenting and low-quality child care. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most pronounced was the finding of differential effects for child care quality. Here, high quality care fostered fewer behavior problems, less teacher-child conflict, and better reading skills while low quality care fostered the opposite &#8212; but, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">only for those children who had a difficult temperament<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The takeaway: children that had a difficult temperament in infancy were differentially susceptible to quality of parenting and child care. For them, the good was extra good, and the bad was extra bad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Study 2<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers at Stanford University engaged high- and low-income kindergartners in activities designed to elicit physiological reactivity (measured by the amount of the stress hormone <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">cortisol<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in their saliva). [3] In other words, the children completed activities that were difficult and kind of frustrating. They also completed a battery of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/executive-function-more-than-meets-the-eye\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">executive function<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> assessments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It turns out that children who displayed higher reactivity (more cortisol) during the activities were more susceptible to their family\u2019s income. That is, family income was significantly associated with children\u2019s EF skills &#8212; but <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">only for those children with high cortisol response<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Highly reactive children had higher EF skills if their family had a higher income, but lower EF skills if their family was lower income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The takeaway: children that were highly reactive when faced with challenging activities were differentially susceptible to their family\u2019s resources. Their EF was particularly strong if their family had high income, yet particularly weak if their family had a lower income.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Evaluating Program Evaluation<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How is being mindful of phenomena like differential susceptibility helpful when we receive the news that children made no special long-term gains after being enrolled in a publicly-funded program? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, we should recognize that we may have set ourselves up for some disappointment at the outset if we assumed that all children would be equally susceptible to the positive effects of home or school interventions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, at school entry, we don\u2019t necessarily know which students are arriving with difficult temperaments. Or whether their child care environment has exacerbated or buffered it. Which means that we\u2019re also not going to be able (practically or ethically) to separate students by level of disadvantage in order to decide which program they should be enrolled in. So let\u2019s just accept that we\u2019re going to see some variation in individual outcomes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s also remind ourselves that variation is not necessarily reflective of an ineffective program. At Head Start, for example, it is probably safe to speculate that most families are juggling some amount of stress, financial instability, and social tension. And according to the DS model, students who are predisposed to be highly reactive will be hit hardest by these things. As a result, reactivity is probably going to interfere with their reaching what we define as success. But DS also tells us that they have the most to gain from a nurturing, consistent environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So let\u2019s not take the money away. Let\u2019s hold off on passing the blame around. And let\u2019s not refer to these data as something going \u201cwrong\u201d. Let\u2019s instead look at the students who continue to struggle and ask what contextual factors \u00a0&#8212; such as a child\u2019s weak self-regulation skills and their parent\u2019s inability to address it in the way their teacher wants because they work two jobs &#8212; are at play.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m no gambler, but if we can figure those things out, and commit to doing something about them, then I say we double-down when it comes to funding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">References<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellis, B. J., Boyce, W. T., Belsky, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., &amp; van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2011). Differential susceptibility to the environment: An evolutionary\u2013neurodevelopmental theory. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Development and Psychopathology, 23,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 7\u201328. doi:10.1017\/S0954579410000611 [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Jay_Belsky\/publication\/49780835_Differential_Susceptibility_to_the_Environment_A_neurodevelopmental_Theory\/links\/00463513f61accd4b3000000.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">link<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">]<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pluess, M., &amp; Belsky, J. (2010). Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. \u00a0<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Developmental Psychology, 46<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, 379-390. [<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/philosonic.com\/michaelpluess_construction\/Files\/PluessBelsky_2010_Differential%20Susceptibility%20to%20Parenting%20and%20Quality%20Child%20Care.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">link<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">]<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Obradovic, J., Portilla, X. A., &amp; Ballard, P. J. (2015). Biological sensitivity to family income: Differential effects on early executive functioning. \u00a0<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Child Development<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, 87(2), 374-384. doi: 10.1111\/cdev.12475 [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/web.stanford.edu\/group\/sparklab\/pdf\/Obradovic%20et%20al.%20(2016,%20CD)%20Bio%20sensitivity%20to%20income%20EF.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">link<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">]<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Show me the Money As most parents, teachers, and education policy folks know well, early childhood education is expensive. Whether federally-funded, state-funded, or family-funded, preschool and structured early care generally operate on a pretty tight budget. They also generally operate on pretty high hopes: academic achievement, personal growth, reduced delinquency, and much more. And they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,63],"class_list":["post-1853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-methodology","tag-pre-k"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1853"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1856,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions\/1856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}