| Poverty has a detrimental effect on children's social, emotional, and cognitive development. This, in turn, leads to a disproportional number of low-income students receiving special education services for learning or behavior problems. Preschool intervention programs such as Head Start are designed to prepare low-income students for the demands of elementary school, and to help close the achievement gap between low-income children and their more affluent peers. Participation in an early intervention program has been associated with long-term benefits; research has shown an increase in school achievement and a decrease in antisocial behavior and delinquency, that can help low-income children move out of poverty and break the cycle of disadvantage. The purpose of this study was to discover whether the comprehensive Head Start program, serving low-income families in one school district, has been effective in reducing the number of children having learning and/or behavior problems by third grade. This study examined the special education placements, social competence, academic achievement, and environmental background, of 90 low-income, third grade students; these students represented 45 pairs matched by ethnicity and gender, and differing by Head Start attendance or no preschool attendance. The results of the study indicated that the Head Start group were less likely to have been retained than the no preschool group, and were more likely to have higher test scores in math. |
