Background

The long-term effectiveness of Head Start remains a topic of debate. Previous research with families of children enrolling in Head Start at three years of age has shown patterns of familial risk moderate the short-term effects of Head Start suggesting some children benefit more than others. However, we know little about patterns of risk that moderate Head Start’s effectiveness for children who first enroll in Head Start at four-year-old and even less about risk factors that moderate the long-term effectiveness of Head Start.

Objective

In the current study, we sought to address these gaps by examining differential treatment effects of Head Start on elementary school outcomes for subgroups of children who first enrolled in Head Start at age four.

Methods

Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify subgroups of children from the four-year-old cohort of the Head Start Impact Study (N = 2,108) based on family risk variables in preschool (e.g., maternal depression). Weighted regression analyses were then conducted to assess if the effects of Head Start on end of pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, 1st, and 3rd grade academic and social-emotional outcomes varied by latent class membership.

Results

While a subsample of children attending Head Start experienced sustained benefits, others had worse outcomes in elementary school, and predominantly any initial benefits of Head Start were not sustained into elementary school.

Conclusion

Irrespective of patterns of familial risk, initial benefits gained via Head Start for children first enrolling in at four-years of age typically fade out during elementary school.

中文翻译：

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Head Start 对长期学业成功的影响：评估家庭风险潜在类别的变化请删除 PDF 中的空白页。

背景

Head Start 的长期有效性仍然是一个争论的话题。先前对三岁时参加启蒙教育的儿童家庭进行的研究表明，家庭风险模式缓和了启蒙教育的短期影响，这表明一些孩子比其他孩子受益更多。然而，对于 4 岁时首次参加 Head Start 的儿童，我们对影响 Head Start 有效性的风险模式知之甚少，对于影响 Head Start 长期有效性的风险因素，我们知之甚少。

客观的

在当前的研究中，我们试图通过检查 Head Start 对 4 岁时首次参加 Head Start 的儿童亚组的小学成绩的不同治疗效果来解决这些差距。

方法

潜类分析 (LCA) 用于根据学龄前儿童的家庭风险变量（例如，母亲抑郁症）从 Head Start 影响研究 ( N  = 2,108)的 4 岁队列中识别儿童亚组。然后进行加权回归分析，以评估 Head Start 对学前班、幼儿园、一年级和三年级学业和社会情感结果的影响是否因潜在班级成员而异。

结果

虽然参加启蒙教育的儿童子样本经历了持续的利益，但其他人在小学的结果更差，而且启蒙教育的任何初始利益主要没有持续到小学。

结论

无论家庭风险模式如何，通过 Head Start 为 4 岁时首次入学的儿童获得的初始收益通常会在小学阶段逐渐消失。