Chat2Learn-AI RCT

Despite decades of preschool expansion and investment in early childhood interventions, the early childhood skills gap between low- and high-income children has widened in the United States. Unequal opportunities for early language development contribute substantially to this gap. Researchers are conducting an RCT of Chat2Learn-AI, an AI-enhanced text-based intervention that delivers personalized, illustrated conversation prompts to help low-income parents foster their children's language skills through back-and-forth, open-ended conversation. Building directly on a successful J-PAL-funded pilot RCT, researchers will randomize N=1,000 low-income preschool and kindergarten families to treatment or business-as-usual control for six months. The primary outcome is children's language skill. Children’s curiosity is an exploratory secondary outcome. Researchers will also measure treatment effects on the quality of the parent-child relationship and parents’ growth mindset and agency in supporting children's skill development. Outcomes will be assessed via direct child assessments and parent surveys at baseline and endline. Power calculations indicate MDES of 0.15 SD.