New Research: Targeted Parent Training Can Help Students Focus—and Succeed

As the Obama Administration ramps up its push for expanded early childhood education access for all children, it’s important to ensure that preschool quality remains a big part of the conversation. Fortunately, there’s good news on this front from the University of Oregon’s Brain Development Lab.

On July 1, researchers Helen Neville, Courtney Stevens, Eric Pakulak, and several co-authors published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that studied the effects of an eight-week “family-based training program designed to improve brain systems for selective attention in preschool children.” Their research, part of a longer project, showed that targeted parent training led to sustained improvements in student focus, better performance on language and IQ assessments and reductions in parental stress.

The researchers tested the training program with a group of low-income students in a Head Start center. Within that group, some students received no adjustments to the Head Start curriculum, others had that curriculum supplemented with exercises to help them focus their attention for extended periods of time and still others had the curriculum supplemented with the exercises and corresponding training for parents.

The results confirmed the researchers’ belief that students who are able to focus their attention will have greater success at school. It also showed that parents of low-income students should be seen as a resource for encouraging their children’s success, not as a hindrance. Indeed, the final group of students—those receiving instruction in the exercises and training for their parents—showed significant improvements across the board. With these results in hand, the researchers concluded that comprehensive programs that help students both directly and by supporting their parents’ growth can help close school readiness and achievement gaps between low- and higher-income students.

The president is fond of noting that public investment in early childhood education has great returns—money spent educating kids in the present will eventually save the public from having to spend as much on prisons in the future—and he’s right. But it’s important to remember that quality matters a lot. More preschool alone probably won’t do much for American students; more high-quality preschool could be a revolutionary improvement. Programs like the one just tested in Oregon might slightly increase the cost of our investment in preschool, but they’ll go a long way towards ensuring that we get the results we’re hoping for. 

To read the research, click here.