Browsing by Author "Escueta, Maya"

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    The Cost of Being an Orphan: Psychosocial Well-being, Cognitive Development and Educational Advancement among Orphans and Abandoned Children in Five Low Income Countries
    (2013-04-19) Escueta, Maya
    Development policymakers and child-care service providers are committed to improving the educational opportunities of the growing population of 153 million orphans worldwide. Nevertheless, the relationship between orphanhood and education outcomes is not well understood. Varying factors associated with differential educational attainment in multiple contexts leave policymakers uncertain where to intervene. Positive Outcomes for Orphans (POFO) is a longitudinal study, following a cohort of single and double orphans and abandoned children (OAC) in institutional and community-based settings, that aims to better understand the characteristics associated with child well-being. Using cross-sectional and child-level fixed effects regression analyses on 1,480 community based children, this manuscript examines associations between emotional difficulties, cognitive development, educational attainment, and a variety of correlates including trauma. Results show that factors such as trauma and lower socio-economic status are correlated with higher emotional difficulties, and that increases in emotional difficulties are associated with lags in cognitive development. In contrast, wealth and caregiver literacy rates hold stronger associations with a child’s grade for age than the level of emotional difficulties experienced by the child. These findings suggest that interventions targeting both the psychosocial development of the child and the socioeconomic status and education of the caregiver may help to reduce barriers to a child’s educational attainment. Family based interventions to stabilize socioeconomic conditions or increase caregiver education may also help overcome psychosocial challenges that otherwise would present as barriers to the child’s educational advancement.
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    Understanding Heterogeneity in the Impact of Public Preschool Programs.
    (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 2023-06) Watts, Tyler W; Jenkins, Jade M; Dodge, Kenneth A; Carr, Robert C; Sauval, Maria; Bai, Yu; Escueta, Maya; Duer, Jennifer; Ladd, Helen; Muschkin, Clara; Peisner-Feinberg, Ellen; Ananat, Elizabeth
    We examine the North Carolina Pre-K (NC Pre-K) program to test the hypothesis that observed variation in effects resulting from exposure to the program can be attributed to interactions with other environmental factors that occur before, during, or after the pre-k year. We examine student outcomes in 5th grade and test interaction effects between NC's level of investment in public pre-k and moderating factors. Our main sample includes the population of children born in North Carolina between 1987 and 2005 who later attended a public school in that state, had valid achievement data in 5th grade, and could be matched by administrative record review (n = 1,207,576; 58% White non-Hispanic, 29% Black non-Hispanic, 7% Hispanic, 6% multiracial and Other race/ethnicity). Analyses were based on a natural experiment leveraging variation in county-level funding for NC Pre-K across NC counties during each of the years the state scaled up the program. Exposure to NC Pre-K funding was defined as the per-4-year-old-child state allocation of funds to a county in a year. Regression models included child-level and county-level covariates and county and year fixed effects. Estimates indicate that a child's exposure to higher NC Pre-K funding was positively associated with that child's academic achievement 6 years later. We found no effect on special education placement or grade retention. NC Pre-K funding effects on achievement were positive for all subgroups tested, and statistically significant for most. However, they were larger for children exposed to more disadvantaged environments either before or after the pre-k experience, consistent with a compensatory model where pre-k provides a buffer against the adverse effects of prior negative environmental experiences and protection against the effects of future adverse experiences. In addition, the effect of NC Pre-K funding on achievement remained positive across most environments, supporting an additive effects model. In contrast, few findings supported a dynamic complementarity model. Instrumental variables analyses incorporating a child's NC Pre-K enrollment status indicate that program attendance increased average 5th grade achievement by approximately 20% of a standard deviation, and impacts were largest for children who were Hispanic or whose mothers had less than a high school education. Implications for the future of pre-k scale-up and developmental theory are discussed.