Craig Ramey, Ph.D.
Craig Ramey and the Abecedarian Project
In 1971, researchers led by Craig Ramey and Joseph Sparling embarked on a groundbreaking study of the impact of high-quality early care and education for children on overcoming the disadvantages of poverty. Four decades and counting later, the ongoing Abecedarian Project continues to demonstrate the positive power of these interventions.
The Abecedarian Approach to Healthy Development
The Abecedarian Approach is a set of early education strategies for the child’s first 5 years of life. It guides adults in effective and positive interactions with the child that support the components of healthy development.
“There is nothing more important than bringing forth the full human potential of each and every child by applying all of our scientific knowledge."
Forging a new frontier in human developmental science
How can implementation science help health practicioners and policymakers?
Craig Ramey’s program of research centers on the role of experience – across the human lifespan - in the development of competence and robust health. His approach relies largely on experimental interventions in education, psychology, and pediatrics that provide rigorous tests of plausible developmental mechanisms of stability and change within dynamic, multilayered ecologies. In addition, he engages both epidemiological and longitudinal datasets to provide a broad contextual framework for identifying the multiple, inter-related conditions that influence biopsychosocial risk, protective, and facilitating factors.
Ramey’s research findings are highly relevant to many national and international policy issues. Accordingly, he has extended his research into topics that address “going-to-scale” and rapid application of scientific findings that can prevent disabilities, promote children’s education and health outcomes, and improve family and community well being. This new field of “implementation science” represents a new frontier for the neurosciences and for educating health practitioners and policymakers. As Ramey says, the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute affords him a unique opportunity to pursue his research interests in collaboration with scientists, scholars, and practitioners who themselves are challenging old paradigms and forging a new frontier in human developmental science.
ctramey@vtc.vt.edu
540-526-2080
R-2012, Riverside 2
- Research Professor and Distinguished Research Scholar of Human Development, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
- Research Professor, Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, College of Science
- Research Professor, Department of Human Development, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech
- Research Professor, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine
Luo Y, Hétu S, Lohrenz T, Hula A, Dayan P, Ramey SL, Sonnier-Netto L, Lisinski J, LaConte S, Nolte T, Fonagy P, Rahmani E, Montague PR, Ramey C. (2018). Early childhood investment impacts social decision-making four decades later. Nature Communications 9(1): 4705.
Ramey, C.T. (2018). The Abecedarian Approach to Social, Educational, and Health Disparities. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 21: 527-544.
Bickel WK, Moody L, Quisenberry AJ, Ramey CT, Sheffer CE. (2014). A competing neurobehavioral decision systems model of SES-related health and behavioral disparities. Preventative Medicine 68: 37-43.
Georgetown University
Founding Director, Georgetown University Center on Health and Education
Distinguished Professor, Health Studies and Psychiatry
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Founding Director, Civitan International Research Center
University Professor of Psychology, Pediatrics, Sociology, Nursing, Maternal and Child Health, and Neurobiology
Director, Alabama's University Affiliated Program for Developmental Disabilities
Director, Developmental Psychology Graduate Training Program
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Director of Research, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center
Professor, Departments of Psychology and Pediatrics
- University of California Berkeley: Postdoctoral fellowship, Human Development
- West Virginia University: Ph.D., Life Span Developmental Psychology
- West Virginia University: M.A., Psychology
- University of Southern California: Research Fellow, Aging and Development
- West Virginia Psychology: B.A., Psychology
- LEAD Virginia Class of 2015
- Invited Martin Luther King Campus-Wide Address, 2015
- United Way of Roanoke Valley Community Impact Award, 2015
- Fordham University Excellence in Early Childhood Award, 2013
- Fellow, Association for Psychological Science, 2013
- Scholar of the Week, Virginia Tech, 2012
- Society for Research in Child Development Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy for Children, 2007
- Chair (elected), National Board for Education Sciences, Institute of Education Services, U.S. Department of Education (Presidential nomination, U.S. Senate confirmation), 2007-2008
- Member, National Board for Education Sciences, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education (Presidential nomination, U.S. Senate confirmation), 2006-2007
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Hall of Honor Inductee, “For leading the research effort to document the effectiveness of environmental enrichment as an early intervention to improve outcomes for children at high risk for developmental and intellectual disabilities due to socio-cultural circumstances," 2003
- Senator Howell Heflin Award for Statesmanship in World Health and Education, 2000
- Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction, 2000
- Career Scientist Award, The Academy on Mental Retardation, 1999
- Rose and Al Pastor Distinguished Lecture, Children's Hospital of Buffalo, N.Y., 1999
- Gold Award, National Parenting Publication Award for Parenting Resources for Right From Birth: Building your Child's Foundation for Life, 1999
- Marie Robert Fisher Distinguished Professor, University of North Texas, 1999
- Chautauqua Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Developmental Disabilities, 1997
- Theodore Tjossem Memorial Lecture, University of Washington, 1994
- Administration for Children, Youth and Families Award for Contributions to Head Start Research and Evaluation, 1991
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Scientists say active early learning shapes the adult brain , article Date: May 31, 2021
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Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute, partners pioneer nation’s first pediatric rehabilitation resource center , article
Research partners across three institutions are opening the nation’s first and only resource center, known as C-PROGRESS, dedicated to promoting clinical trials research in the rapidly expanding field of pediatric rehabilitation.
Date: Jul 21, 2020 -
Article ItemNation’s first clinical trial for rehabilitating infant stroke victims to begin , article
Called I-ACQUIRE, the Phase III clinic trial will examine the effectiveness of a pediatric therapy to increase upper extremity skills, gross motor development, and cognition in 240 children nationwide who experienced strokes when they were under 4 weeks old.
Date: Mar 25, 2019 -
Article ItemVTCRI researchers find positive effects of early education intervention four decades later , article
New research published in Nature Communications, led by Read Montague, of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, suggests that participants who received educational interventions in early childhood show positive effects on social decision-making more than four decades later.
Date: Nov 20, 2018 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists: high-quality, early childhood education has significant benefits , article
Children given high-quality education at an early age – starting at 6 weeks old and continuing through their first five years of life – are more likely to be employed full-time and have better relationships with their parents as adults, according to new results from a longitudinal study now entering its fifth decade.
Date: Apr 21, 2017 -
Article ItemBrain School 2015 focuses on beginnings , article
Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute to host third annual Brain School.
Date: Mar 10, 2015 -
Article ItemAbecedarian Project pioneer lauds new evidence supporting early educational interventions , article
One of the founders of the landmark early childhood intervention known as the Abecedarian Project lauds the new insights that the project continues to produce.
Date: Apr 07, 2014
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