Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for low-income children, appears to have short-term positive impacts on early academic skills, teacher-child relationships, and behavior for children living in “non-parental care,” according to researchers at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
The researchers drew on data from the federal Head Start Impact Study, a nationally representative sample of Head Start programs and families, to focus on children being cared for by adults other than their parents—a group considered to be at higher risk than other poor children. The study is published in the January-February issue of Applied Developmental Psychology.
