State to probe health, children

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jul 28, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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New findings on how  education and health traits are largely determined by the age of 5 are so striking that the state plans to host a symposium on the issue this year, officials said.

“It truly was mind boggling,” said state Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston and a member of the House Education Committee.

Downs and eight other state and local policymakers attended a two-day conference on the issue at Harvard University on June 26-27.

State officials are now in early talks on how the new findings can help Louisiana combat daunting education, health and other problems.

The meeting was hosted by the Center on the Developing Child, which does research on how an infant and toddler’s early years shape their quality of life. Officials of 13 other states also took part.

Among the findings:

• While Louisiana and other states are pushing to open public classrooms for 4-year-olds, that age may be too late. If the aim is to trim barriers to education achievement, “four is not early,” Dr. Jack Shonkoff, founding director of the center at Harvard, told participants.
• Babies begin showing notable vocabulary and other differences between the ages of  16 and 24 months, depending on whether their parents had less than a high-school education, a high school diploma or a college diploma. “We are playing catch-up at age 2 and getting further and further behind,” Shonkoff said.
• Youngsters from birth through age 5 who are the victims of family abuse and neglect are more likely to face health problems as adults, including diabetes, strokes and various cancers.

“The message is that serious stress early in life is not only bad for learning,” Shonkoff said. “It is also bad for your health for the rest of your life.”

Exactly how state officials plan to act on the new research is unclear here and elsewhere.

Downs said it could pave the way for new laws and other changes designed to detect learning problems much earlier.

He said state officials already have commitments from three officials at Harvard to spell out their findings to participants at a symposium in Louisiana in November.

Ann Silverberg Williamson, secretary of the state Department of Social Services, also attended the two-day gathering.

Williamson said that, while she is not advocating putting infants in pre-schools, there are lessons from the conference that could benefit even those from birth to age 3.

She said that, since all students face the same standards in kindergarten, the state might want to consider common quality standards for the wide array of settings used now, including the LA4 classes for 4-year-olds, Early Head Start and Head Start.

Louisiana has won notice for a new program run by DSS  that rewards quality child-care centers with tax credits.