DANVILLE — A 2- or 3-year-old child who shows immediate signs of blossoming intelligence is the pride and joy of parents thinking of what the future might hold for their little one. But, according to local early child education professionals, early intelligence is not always a sign of immediate success down the road for a child still learning his ABCs.

Ana Nasser is the director of the Child Development Center at Danville Area Community College. In recent years, she has partnered with the University of Illinois, Danville District 118 and the East Central Illinois Community Action Agency in a program that stresses one point of education above all others — literacy.

For Nasser, language and literacy is the basis of early child development.

“Many, many times we will have a child who is super smart,” she said. “He can count, do colors, can do this, can do that. But you put them in a group of peers, and they do not succeed. They have problems.”

Conversely, she said, in a group of children you always see the child with the most language development control the situation.

“Language gives them the power to be successful,” she said.

As a result of this belief, she has worked as part of the Developing Early Language and Literacy in Danville project, also known as DELL-D. The program works to help not only the children, but also their parents.

Absorbing knowledge

Nasser related how she once listened to a speaker talk about the importance of early child development and its long-term effects for children. To underline the point, the speaker pointed out officials in the states of Arizona and California began looking at third-grade reading statistics for students in order to plan — for future state prisons.

“These states have been doing that because literacy, language is critical to success,” she said. “If you don’t have the language, you are not going to succeed in that school system.”

In a National Institutes of Health announcement released in June, a continuing study done in Chicago indicates that early childhood development through education is reflected in several ways later on in life.

In 2007, researchers from Temple University and the University of Minnesota followed 1,539 low-income children from the age of 3 or 4 through 24. As many as 1,000 had participated in the Chicago Public School system early childhood program called Child-Parent Centers and around 500 from other early education programs.

Researchers reported that by age 24, the children who had participated in the Chicago Public School system program had attained a higher level of education as compared to students who did not participate in the program. Those participating students also attained higher income and socioeconomic status by age 24 and had health insurance coverage.

Further study results, published in June in the online edition of Science, found that by age 28 participants also had a lower rate of involvement in the justice system, including 22 percent lower rate of felony arrest and a 28 percent lower rate of incarceration and substance abuse.

Overall, the most consistent and enduring outcomes were found in children who participated at the preschool level, around ages 3 and 4, according to National Institutes of Health, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Not enough children are given the opportunity early on to develop. According to Nasser, young children need to be put in a quality environment that provides education early in their lives, noting the experience “wires their brain to do more than is expected.”

She said a child’s brain is a sponge that’s not empty, but rather filled with information from what they’ve encountered up to that point in their young lives. It is up to teachers and parents to develop that information.

At the DACC Child Development Center, Nasser said children are prompted to think rather than just learn.

Writing is stressed, ranging from writing centers where children can sit down and write whatever they want to students signing their names when they arrive for class.

“Even if it’s a line, we’ll take it,” Nasser said of the sign-ins.

Teachers, instead of reading a book to children and showing them the pictures, ask the children to try to judge what the book is about from the title and examine the photos to guess what will happen next before the page is turned.

Nasser said the language and literacy aspect is intended to open up children, giving them a better knowledge of themselves as well as the world around them.

“When you come here and you ask a child, ‘What do they like?’ they are more into themselves,” Nasser said. “You can recognize their personality better.”

What do I do?

Teaching a child can be difficult, but teaching a parent can be just as hard. Explaining to parents — from first-time moms and dads to experienced parents — just what their actions now will mean in a child’s life 15 years down the road can be tough.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor Jeanette McCollum is part of the DELL-D program. She said parents must have a role in the early development of a child, noting that in some early childhood programs, the children are only there 2½ hours a day.

“The amount of impact by the teacher is a lot, but not nearly as much as if the family is involved too,” she said.

“They have a role in it themselves,” McCollum said of the parents. “It is incumbent on early programs to work with the family as well as with the kids.”

Helping your child in his early years doesn’t mean turning your home into a classroom. According to McCollum, just the simple aspect of talking to your child — even in the car as you drive — and reading to him can make all the difference.

She said a parent should try to involve the child in what they’re doing, whether it’s letting them see you read or watching you write or make a list.

McCollum cautioned anxious parents shouldn’t expect a child to immediately pick up everything they try to teach. They are still developing their fine motor skills, she said, and in some cases developing an understanding of what their name stands for.

“If you provide the opportunity on a daily basis, they will learn,” she said.