Launch of Age 9 Preparing for Life study results
(The picture above shows Professor Marjorie Smith, UCL Institute of Education, UK and Dr Orla Doyle, UCD School of Economics, Ireland.)
On 27th November, Orla Doyle, associate professor in the School of Economics, launched the Age 9 results of the Preparing for Life study in Smock Alley, Dublin. Research from this pioneering early intervention programme, Preparing for Life (PFL), found that the children whose parents received the programme have IQ points which are 8 points higher than the control group, four years after the programme ended.
The Preparing for Life study, which has been running since 2008, included 233 parents who were randomly allocated into a high treatment group and a low treatment group. All families received some supports, but the families in the high treatment group received intensive parenting supports from pregnancy until their children started primary school.
The latest report revisits the children when they 9 years old to see the programme has an enduring effect. "The results show that PFL is continuing to have a meaningful and long-lasting impact on the children’s lives,” said Dr. Orla Doyle, UCD School of Economics. “The children who received the programme in their first 5 years are better at making decisions, solving problems, and thinking logically at age 9. They also have better language skills. The programme gave them the basic cognitive tools and now the children are using these tools to master the more complicated tasks which school demands. If these impacts are sustained, they are likely to have important consequences for their success in school and beyond, particularly for their educational and employment opportunities."
The full report is available (opens in a new window)here.
You can also read more about the study here.