Leveraging Early Adolescence for Development: Longitudinal and Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Introduction

Early adolescence is a key window for human development. Strategic timing of interventions during this life stage may seize opportunities and prevent risks; bolster the impact of earlier investments; and ease damages from previous adversity.

Evidence Gaps

Yet evidence on whether such programs can fulfill this potential, for which children, and through which channels, is scant, especially in low-resource settings, where 90% of the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents live.

Research Approach

I will tackle these gaps by relying on a cohort of approximately 2,500 children approaching early adolescence. In 2015, this sample participated in a trial evaluating quality preschool education in Ghana and has been followed up since: the program improved child development through middle childhood.

Intervention Design

I will re-randomize this sample at 12 years to test a parenting skills program to enhance early adolescent development through improved parenting support and parent-adolescent interactions.

Data Collection

Children and parents will be re-interviewed when children are 13, 15, and 17 years through mixed-method data collection. Outcomes include:

• Adolescent social-emotional and academic skills
• Health (including stress biomarkers)
• Adult-life transitions

This data will allow testing dynamic complementarities between interventions during early childhood and early adolescence, or whether interventions in adolescence might compensate for earlier adversity in the short- and longer-term.

Methodological Considerations

Methodologically, these questions can be convincingly studied only if data are available for the same individuals over time, and if variations in exposure to early childhood and early adolescence programs are exogenously driven. This is the first study that addresses both requirements, providing a breakthrough.

Further Research Focus

Heterogeneity by child gender and socioeconomic status, and mechanisms are further research foci.

Conclusion

LEAD’s high-risk components are well-balanced by my in-depth knowledge of the field, methods, and study context, with high potential for scientific and societal impact.