Nineteen Months

We have heard a lot recently about how deployment impacts military children’s academic success, and a new study gives new, concrete information. The Rand Corporation gave attendees of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition an advance look at a recently completed six-year study yesterday in Washington. 

Rand Corp. conducted the study from 2002 to 2008, sampling military children attending public schools in North Carolina and Washington state. They discovered that children whose parents have been deployed for 19 months or more cumulatively had lower school achievement test scores than children whose parents had been deployed for less time or not at all. The impact for children began at the 19-month mark, and the cumulative amount of time was more significant than the number of deployments. No significant variation was found depending on location of the deployment, or the age, gender and rank or status of the parent.  I have written in the past about how, for some reason that isn’t clear, girls tend to have more difficulties than boys, but that was not part of this study. The study also confirms what might be expected, that the more a parent struggles with deployment of the spouse, the more likely the children are to struggle also. 

Amy Richarson, policy analyst for Rand and the speaker at the meeting, said, “We also found that children are facing some behavioral health challenges that can impact their academic success, and for many of the children [resilience] seemed to be waning.”  This is a troublesome development, for the resilience of children is one of the things families most depend upon when facing upheavals and added stress.

But cooperative efforts with schools and an increase in behavioral health resources can have a positive impact, the study found.  I’ll write about that, and about ideas raised at the conference, tomorrow.