Enrichment Programs Help Children Build Knowledge

New research suggests enrichment programs help children solidify the information they have added to their wall of knowledge. How humans organize information plays an integral role in memory, reasoning and the ability to acquire new knowledge. In the absence of routine education programs, the pandemic is exacerbating the disparities in educational opportunities available for children to develop new skills. While children of higher socioeconomic means often benefit from enrichment programs, these opportunities are unfortunately not available to every child. New research at Carnegie Mellon University presents the first direct evidence that experiential programs increase a child's ability to lock away new information as well as generalize the knowledge to new situations. These findings suggest that enrichment programs folded into a normal academic curriculum could strengthen knowledge acquisition and increase academic success. "It is well documented that economic privilege is linked to better academic outcomes," said Catarina Vales , a postdoctoral researcher in CMU's Psychology Department and first author on the study.