Early Stimulation and Enhanced Preschool: A Randomized Trial

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the impacts of 2 interventions, early stimulation (ES) for children aged <3 years and enhanced preschool (EP) for children aged 31 years, and their interactions. METHODS: In Odisha, India, 192 villages were randomly assigned to ES or to no ES. Within each village, about 8 mothers with children initially aged 7 to 16 months were enrolled, receiving ES or no ES accordingly (n 5 1449). Subsequently, when children were aged ∼3 years, the villages were rerandomized to either EP at Anganwadi centers or no EP. This yielded 4 groups: (1) ES and EP, (2) only ES, (3) only EP, and (4) no intervention. Trained Anganwadi workers ran the EP. Primary outcomes, measured at baseline and follow-up after ∼1 year, were children’s IQ (summarizing cognition, language, and executive functioning) and school readiness (SR). Secondary outcomes were home environments, caregivers’ child-development knowledge. and preschool quality. RESULTS: Fifteen months after ES ended, onlyES had a sustained benefit on IQ (0.18 SD, P