Carolina Abecedarian Project

The Carolina Abecedarian Project was a comprehensive early education program for young children at risk for developmental delays and school failure. The program operated in a single site, between 1972 and 1985, in North Carolina, and has undergone extensive assessments of its long-term effects on participants.

The Abecedarian program involved two components, a preschool intervention and a school-age intervention. The preschool program was essentially a day care service, the main goal of which was to create an educational, stimulating, and structured environment to promote growth and learning and to enhance school readiness. The curriculum was designed to enhance cognitive and linguistic development and to provide an enriched language environment that was responsive to children's needs and interests. In addition, children received nutritional supplements and disposable diapers, along with pediatric care and supportive social work services.

The school-age intervention program began at kindergarten entry, and continued through the first three years of elementary school. A resource teacher was assigned to each child and family for the length of the program. The resource teacher prepared an individualized set of home activities to supplement the school's basic curriculum in reading and math, taught parents how to use these activities with their children, tutored children directly, met regularly with classroom teachers to ensure that home activities matched the skills being taught in the classroom, served as a consultant for the classroom teacher when problems arose, and advocated for the child and family within the school and community.

The goal of this program is to improve the academic performance and cognitive development of young children who are considered at risk for developmental delays and school failure.

The evaluation of the program used rigorous standards, including a randomized experimental design and longitudinal follow-up. The participants experienced significant and sizeable gains across most of the cognitive and academic performance outcomes. Besides the main finding of significant effects for the Abecedarian program as a whole at enhancing long-term IQ and academic achievement, another important conclusion to be drawn from the evaluations is that five years of the Abecedarian preschool intervention is almost equally as effective as five years of the preschool program with a three-year primary school follow-up, and definitely more effective than the Abecedarian primary school intervention alone.