A long time ago I wrote several technical notes about early childhood intervention to the deputy and the secretary of labour when there was still "a Department of Labour" . I am almost certain they did not read any of these notes. James Heckman, Nobel Laureate, econometricain at Chicago wrote extensively on this subject and showed the efficacy of early childhood intervention. Intervention would save the country a lot, and reduce private and social cost over time. I argued that it is the right way to go for New Zealand.
I have been reading a very informative book, which I highly recommend because it has very well written interesting stories. The book is The Gene, An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee who is an American cancer physician and researcher at Columbia University. My daughter, who is a University of Cambridge PhD in Chemistry and a Chief Editor at Nature Science in the UK, and I had an argument on the dinner table about the gene and gene-environment effects on student's ability (ability is an unobservable variable) so she recommended that I read this book.
Here is something from page 459, which reminded my of the notes that I wrote back then at the DoL.
He says, "In 2010, a team of researchers launched a research study, called the Strong African American Families Project, or SAAF, in an impoverished rural belt n Georgia. It is a startlingly bleak place overrun by delinquency, alcoholism, violence, mental illness, and drug use. Abandoned clapboard houses with broken windows dot the landscape; crime abounds; vacant parking lots are strewn with hypodermic needles. Half of the adults lack high school education, and nearly half the families have single mothers.
Six hundred African-American families were randomly assigned to two groups. In one group, the children and their parents received seven weeks of intensive education, counseling, emotional support, and structured social interventions focused on preventing alcoholism, binge behaviors, violence, impulsiveness, and drug use. In the control group, the families received minimal interventions. Children in the intervention group and in the control group had the 5HTTLPR gene sequenced (It encodes a molecule that modulated signaling between certain neurons in the brain.It was found that it is associated with response of psychic stress. The gene comes in two forms or alleles - a long variant and a short variant. The short variant called 5HTTLPR/short and it is carried by about 40 percent of the population and seems to produce significantly lower levels of the protein. The short variant has been repeatedly associated with anxious behavior, depression, trauma, alcoholism, and high-risk behaviors. The link is not strong, butbit is broad: the shorter allele has been associated with increased suicidal risk among German alcoholics, increased depression in American college students, and higher rate of PTSD among deployed soldiers).
The first results of this randomized trail was predictable from prior studies: in the control group, children with short variant, i.e. the high risk form of the gene - were twice as likely to veer toward high-risk behaviors, including binge drinking, drug use, and sexual promiscuity as adolescences, confirming earlier studies that had suggested an increased risk within this genetic subgroup. The second result was more provocative: these very children were also the most likely to respond to the social interventions. In the intervention group , children with high-risk allele were most strongly and rapidly "normalized" - i.e., the most drastically affected subjects were also the best respondents. In a parallel study, orphaned infants with the short variant of 5HTTLRP appeared more impulsive and socially disturbed than their long-variant counterparts at baseline - but were also the most likely to benefit from placement in a more nurturing foster-care environment."
Enjoy reading the book
I have been reading a very informative book, which I highly recommend because it has very well written interesting stories. The book is The Gene, An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee who is an American cancer physician and researcher at Columbia University. My daughter, who is a University of Cambridge PhD in Chemistry and a Chief Editor at Nature Science in the UK, and I had an argument on the dinner table about the gene and gene-environment effects on student's ability (ability is an unobservable variable) so she recommended that I read this book.
Here is something from page 459, which reminded my of the notes that I wrote back then at the DoL.
He says, "In 2010, a team of researchers launched a research study, called the Strong African American Families Project, or SAAF, in an impoverished rural belt n Georgia. It is a startlingly bleak place overrun by delinquency, alcoholism, violence, mental illness, and drug use. Abandoned clapboard houses with broken windows dot the landscape; crime abounds; vacant parking lots are strewn with hypodermic needles. Half of the adults lack high school education, and nearly half the families have single mothers.
Six hundred African-American families were randomly assigned to two groups. In one group, the children and their parents received seven weeks of intensive education, counseling, emotional support, and structured social interventions focused on preventing alcoholism, binge behaviors, violence, impulsiveness, and drug use. In the control group, the families received minimal interventions. Children in the intervention group and in the control group had the 5HTTLPR gene sequenced (It encodes a molecule that modulated signaling between certain neurons in the brain.It was found that it is associated with response of psychic stress. The gene comes in two forms or alleles - a long variant and a short variant. The short variant called 5HTTLPR/short and it is carried by about 40 percent of the population and seems to produce significantly lower levels of the protein. The short variant has been repeatedly associated with anxious behavior, depression, trauma, alcoholism, and high-risk behaviors. The link is not strong, butbit is broad: the shorter allele has been associated with increased suicidal risk among German alcoholics, increased depression in American college students, and higher rate of PTSD among deployed soldiers).
The first results of this randomized trail was predictable from prior studies: in the control group, children with short variant, i.e. the high risk form of the gene - were twice as likely to veer toward high-risk behaviors, including binge drinking, drug use, and sexual promiscuity as adolescences, confirming earlier studies that had suggested an increased risk within this genetic subgroup. The second result was more provocative: these very children were also the most likely to respond to the social interventions. In the intervention group , children with high-risk allele were most strongly and rapidly "normalized" - i.e., the most drastically affected subjects were also the best respondents. In a parallel study, orphaned infants with the short variant of 5HTTLRP appeared more impulsive and socially disturbed than their long-variant counterparts at baseline - but were also the most likely to benefit from placement in a more nurturing foster-care environment."
Enjoy reading the book
