Verified by 
Child Development
Early Childhood Education: Is Earlier Really Better?
Short Term Gains are NOT Maintained in Later Grades
Posted December 23, 2015
Given the nationwide push to teach children more and more complex concepts at earlier and earlier ages surely there must be an extensive scientific literature to support these efforts. Actually, there is currently no scientific basis for doing this and there is an emerging data set indicating that these attempts are in fact counterproductive. Recently, a lead editorial in one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, namely Science, questioned why middle school children were being taught college-level and even graduate school level cell biology when their developing minds were not yet ready to receive this complex information. The knowledge foundations and problem solving abilities in the areas of cell structure, chemistry, and biology had not been taught nor learned by these children so that the rote memorization of features such as “Golgi Apparatus” in cells are essentially meaningless to them.
Given the emerging debate and crucial questions regarding what should be taught when in a child's educational journey, is it even possible to scientifically test a question such as "Is earlier really better?" And if so, why haven't these kinds of studies being conducted? And even more importantly, if there is no scientific evidence, why are parents being pushed to pound more information such as “Golgi Apparatus” and pre-calculus into their child's minds at ever earlier ages? At the least, one wonders why there haven't been studies of potential side effects of these efforts.
Every drug manufacturer has to mention potential side effects of the treatment in their pharmaceutical advertisements. As one listens to these side effects, it often seems that the cure is far worse than the disease. I wonder if it will ultimately turn out to be the case in this race to turn babies, toddlers and preschoolers into test-taking automatons at ever-younger ages.
From a scientific viewpoint, it would be fairly straightforward to test these questions: Does accelerating development really improve a skill? Decrease the skill? Improve a skill but have unwanted side effects? Or does accelerating development have no long-term benefits or detriments? Currently, it is assumed that earlier is indeed better, but this is far from being proven. Indeed, there are a number of studies showing that attempts to accelerate learning can produce short term gains on the skills being drilled—and memorized—but do NOT produce long term, sustained improvements.
Nearly 40 years ago, professor Lois Nelson argued that although attempts to accelerate cognitive development could indeed produce short-term gains, but that these gains were not maintained long term. Worse, she noted that these short-term gains can come at a high cost. Children that had been prematurely pushed to learn concepts for which their minds were not ready subsequently displayed increased passivity—and apathy—for learning. Most children are naturally curious and want to learn, but those pushed too early seemed to lose interest in learning new things. Nelson also reported that the “thrust for attainment in the intellectual area may impede growth in other areas of personal and social development (p. 257).[1]” In short, any benefits of acceleration were short lived and there were negative side effects of these efforts in the form of reduced motivation for learning (passivity) and in social development.
And this is by no means an “out of date” finding. In fact, the lack of benefit and potential adverse consequences of accelerating learning beyond reason were once again replicated recently. Vanderbilt professor and early childhood specialist Dale Ferran studied the effects of enrollment in academic preschool on longer term educational outcomes. The results of this study indicated that: “Children in TNVPK [accelerated preschool] classrooms made initial strong gains and were perceived by their teachers at kindergarten entry as being better prepared. However, the achievement of the control children caught up to that of the pre-K children by the end of kindergarten. In second and third grades achievement trends crossed over, with academic achievement for the pre-K children becoming worse than for the control children.”[2]
This result should not be surprising given the long history of failed attempts to accelerate learning beyond reasonable levels. As an absurd illustration, if earlier is always better in child development, why isn’t it a national priority to ensure that all children learn to walk and to talk in sentences by the time they reach six months of age? After all, mother nature and the usual course of development is remarkably consistent: the overwhelming majority of toddlers will learn to walk and start using first words somewhere between their first and second birthdays. This is true whether a child is raised in a crowded urban environment, on a farm, in the suburbs and in fact seems to be true no matter where in the world a child is born or what languages their parents speak.
The ongoing national educational focus on pushing development earlier and earlier would suggest that these highly salient developmental milestones, walking and talking in sentences, would be natural targets for enhancement. So why haven’t we seen programs designed to ensure all children walk and talk in sentences by six months of age—or even earlier? Because, of course, it is simply absurd to teach a six month old to walk or to talk in sentences. They are physically and mentally incapable of doing so. Moreover, people generally seem to recognize that teaching a six month old to walk and talk is not a worthwhile goal. After all, the overwhelming majority of children will learn to walk quite well before they reach two years of age. No special teaching is needed and there is no evidence that walking or talking earlier conveys any long-term benefits for motor coordination, intellectual development or speech and language skills.
Perhaps scientists could develop a training program to reduce the average age a child walks by a few months. But what would be the point? More importantly, if a toddler is pushed into walking early, would there be any long term advantage to doing so? And, are there any potential unintended detrimental side effects to forcing a child to walk before they are ready? It is easy to speculate that pushing a child to walk before their joints and bones are ready could also end up causing long-term harm. Perhaps the stress of standing up would prevent the knees and hips from aligning properly; perhaps the bones would become misshapen. Perhaps a toddler’s proportional body configuration would induce an unusual gait that would adversely affect stride and balance in the long run.
There appears to a widespread ASSUMPTION that pushing children into structured—school style learning is advantageous—and many in the current generation of young children are being educated based on this assumption. But, it is noteworthy that when this assumption is put to the test, student outcomes do not support this assumption. Perhaps it is time to rethink early childhood education to fit reasonable developmental expectations and better harness every child’s inherent curiosity and love of learning to nurture reasoning and problem solving. It is also crucial that potential harmful effects be considered. Parents should question whether it is actually vital that their preschooler sit at a desk and complete worksheets or whether it is reasonable to expect an Kindergartener to write an essay. These practices may ultimately do more harm than good to a child’s academic—and intellectual development.
[1] Nelson, Lois. "Accelerating Cognitive Development-Harmful or Helpful to Children?" Educational Leadership 31 (1973): 255-58.
[2] http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015/10/08-the-tennessee-…. Accessed on December 23, 2015.
Note: Portions of this article are adapted from "The intuitive parent" by Stephen Camarata and published by Current/Penguin/Random House.
