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Highlights

Exhibit 1: Summary of Main Impact Findings1 Domains, Constructs, and Measures Effect Sizes2 3-Year-Old Group 4-Year-Old Group Cognitive Domain Pre-Reading Woodcock-Johnson III Letter-Word Identification 0.24 0.22 Letter Naming 0.19 0.24 Pre-Writing McCarthy Draw-A-Design 0.13 -- Woodcock-Johnson III Spelling -- 0.16 Vocabulary PPVT-III Adapted 0.12 -- Color Naming 0.10 -- Parent Reported Literacy Skills 0.34 0.29 Oral Comprehension and Phonological Awareness -- -- Early Math -- -- Social-Emotional Domain Problem Behaviors Total Behavior Problems -0.133i -- Hyperactive Behavior -0.183ii -- Aggressive Behavior -- -- Withdrawn Behavior -- -- Social Skills and Approaches to Learning -- -- Social Competencies -- -- Health Domain Access to Health Care Child Had Dental Care 0.34 0.32 Child Has Health Insurance -- -- Health Status Overall Health Status 0.12 -- Child Needs Ongoing Care -- -- Child Had Care for Injury -- -- Parenting Domain Educational Activities Number of Times Child Read To 0.18 0.13 Family Cultural Enrichment Scale 0.11 -- Discipline Strategies Spanked Child in Last Week -0.143iii -- Number of Times Spanked -0.103iv -- Used Timeout -- -- Number of Timeouts -- -- Child Safety Practices Overall Parental Safety Practices -- -- Removing Harmful Objects -- -- Restricting Child Movement -- -- Safety Devices -- --

1 All effect sizes presented in table are based on statistically significant treatment and control differences of at least p≤0.05. (back) 2 Effect sizes relate the magnitude of impacts to the variation of the outcome as measured by the estimated treatment and control differences relative to the magnitude of the standard deviation on the measure of interest (i.e., as a fraction of one standard deviation). (back) 3 Negative effect sizes mean reduction in total problem behaviors, hyperactive behavior, and spanking. (back 3i, 3ii, 3iii, 3iv)

The Congressionally-mandated Head Start Impact Study is being conducted across 84 nationally representative grantee/delegate agencies. Approximately 5,000 newly entering 3- and 4-year-old children applying for Head Start were randomly assigned to either a Head Start group that had access to Head Start program services or to a non-Head Start group that could enroll in available community non-Head Start services, selected by their parents. Data collection began in fall 2002 and is scheduled to continue through 2006, following children through the spring of their 1^st-grade year.

The study quantifies the impact of Head Start separately for 3- and 4-year-old children across child cognitive, social-emotional, and health domains as well as on parenting practices. For children in the 3-year-old group, the preliminary results from the first year of data collection demonstrate small to moderate1 positive effects favoring the children enrolled in Head Start for some outcomes in each domain. Fewer positive impacts were found for children in the 4-year-old group.2 The key findings are summarized below and presented in Exhibit 1:

Cognitive Domain

The cognitive domain consists of six constructs each comprising one or more measures. The key findings in this domain are:

• There are small to moderate statistically significant positive impacts for both 3-and 4-year-old children on several measures across four of the six cognitive constructs, including pre-reading, pre-writing, vocabulary, and parent reports of children’s literacy skills.

• No significant impacts were found for the constructs oral comprehension and phonological awareness or early mathematics skills for either age group.

Social-Emotional Domain

The social-emotional domain consists of three constructs, each comprising one or more parent-reported measures.3 The key findings in this domain are:

• For children who entered the study as 3-year-olds, there is a small statistically significant impact in one of the three social-emotional constructs, problem behaviors.

• There were no statistically significant impacts on social skills and approaches to learning or on social competencies for 3-year-olds.

• No significant impacts were found for children entering the program as 4-year-olds.

Health Domain

The key findings in this domain, consisting of two constructs, are:

• For 3-year-olds, there are small to moderate statistically significant impacts in both constructs, higher parent reports of children’s access to health care and reportedly better health status for children enrolled in Head Start.

• For children who entered the program as 4-year-olds, there are moderate statistically significant impacts on access to health care, but no significant impacts for health status.

Parenting Practices Domain

The key findings in this domain, consisting of three constructs, are:

• For children who entered the program as 3-year-olds, there are small statistically significant impacts in two of the three parenting constructs, including a higher use of educational activities and a lower use of physical discipline by parents of Head Start children. There were no significant impacts for safety practices.

• For children who entered the program as 4-year-olds, there are small statistically significant impacts on parents’ use of educational activities. No significant impacts were found for discipline or safety practices.

Future reports will extend these analyses to examine additional areas of possible impact, explore possible variation in impact by program characteristics (e.g., classroom quality, teacher educational level, full-day versus part-day programs, etc.) and community characteristics, and follow children through the end of 1^st grade.

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1 For this report we have adopted the following conventions for interpreting effect sizes: less than 0.2 is small, between 0.2 and 0.5 is a moderate impact, and over 0.5 is a large impact. (back)

2 Future analysis will test statistical significance of the differences in impacts across the two age groups. (back)

3 Future reports will also examine this domain using teacher-reported data. (back)

 

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