Little is known about how the experience of an earthquake affects young children's cognitive outcomes. On February 27, 2010, a severe earthquake shook southern Chile. The earthquake occurred during the course of a large-scale evaluation of an early childhood education intervention (child average age=53 months) in Santiago, such that one cohort of children (n=698) experienced baseline data collection 3–12 weeks after the earthquake occurred, while a different cohort of children (n=720) did not. In this paper, we used these available evaluation data to conduct two sets of analyses that explore the relationship between preschool children’s exposure to the 2010 Chilean earthquake and their early language, pre-literacy, mathematics and executive function outcomes. In the first set of analyses, we employed a propensity score analysis to estimate the short-term effect of the earthquake on preschool- aged children’s early learning and executive function outcomes. Results suggest that children who experienced the earthquake had lower scores on some early language and pre-literacy assessments than those who did not, with effect sizes of approximately 20% of a standard deviation. Results from the second set of analyses suggest that among the families who experienced the earthquake, children whose parents reported more earthquake- related stressors performed significantly lower on some early language and pre-literacy outcomes. Implications of these findings for disaster relief efforts and future research are discussed.

We assessed impacts on classroom quality and on 5 child language and behavioral outcomes of a 2-year teacher professional-development program for publicly funded prekindergarten and kindergarten in Chile. This cluster-randomized trial included 64 schools (child N 1,876). The program incorporated workshops and in-classroom coaching. We found moderate to large positive impacts on observed emotional and instructional support as well as classroom organization in prekindergarten classrooms after 1 year of the program. After 2 years of the program, moderate positive impacts were observed on emotional support and classroom organization. No significant program impacts on child outcomes were detected at posttest (1 marginal effect, an increase in a composite of self-regulation and low problem behaviors, was observed). Professional development for preschool teachers in Chile can improve classroom quality. More intensive curricular approaches are needed for these improvements to translate into effects on children.