Overview of Early Child-Care and Education Programmes and Jamaican Case Studies

Abstract

The extent to which early childhood programmes can produce long-term benefits to children's cognitive and social-emotional development continues to be a major concern of policy makers. This paper examines some of the model intervention programmes for children under four years of age that have been carried out in the United States and some developing countries, with emphasis on our experience in Jamaica. in general, programme participants have shown concurrent gains in IQ during the intervention. These have been sustained into the early school years, after which there is a tendency for the gains to decline. However, some programmes have reported persistence of IQ gains to the age of 12 years. Long-term gains in educational progress include fewer placements in special education classes and less grade retention. Programmes of greater duration and intensity were more likely to be successful.