Description of Collaborative Activity: |
The objective of this Inter-Agency Agreement is to implement a hearing examination protocol in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of the Kindergarten Class of 2010–11. This is a large (n=20,000), nationally representative school-based exam and interview survey sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education. The last NCES longitudinal cohort study of school age children began with the 1998 Kindergarten Class. In this earlier cohort, there were no hearing exams (nor vision exams) and the number of young children with hearing loss (reported by parents or teachers) shrank considerably after the initial enrollment of Kindergarteners. A randomly selected sub-sample of about 4500 children were identified for more frequent follow-up and these children have also been selected for the hearing examination; they are also included in a “selected” (protected) subsample for more intensive tracking in follow-up waves of the survey. Children in the selected subsample will be tracked to new schools when possible if they are later enrolled in (moved to) a school that was not in the original school sample, e.g., when families relocate. In addition to hearing, the ECLS-K: 2010-11 will track several other outcome measures (e.g., general health, social and physical development, achievement scores, and parental and teacher-reported communication problems) associated with educational performance. Hearing will be tested when the children are examined with achievement testing in the school setting. |
