Disabilities Among Children Enrolled in Head Start: Relationships to Child and Parent Outcomes

Publication Date: April 15, 2001
Current as of:

Since its inception, Head Start has promoted enrollment and delivery of services to children with special needs. Head Start programs set aside 10% of available program slots for families of children with special needs regardless of income. Head Start guidelines promote: Inclusion of children with special needs in regular classroom activities; Development of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) including an integrated service delivery program to accommodate the needs of these children and their families.

Head Start programs actively recruit children with previously diagnosed disabilities or special needs. In addition, an important function of Head Start is to identify and diagnose disabilities in young children during or after recruitment into the program.

The objective of this poster is to examine similarities and differences between these two groups of children, as well as to provide comparisons to their non-disabled peers.