The Effects of Early Care and Education Settings on the Kindergarten Outcomes of Doubly Vulnerable Children

Abstract

Program administrators and policy makers have placed a priority on expanding access to inclusive, center-based early care and education (ECE) for low-income children with special needs, a “doubly vulnerable” population characterized by academic and social-emotional achievement gaps at kindergarten entry. Yet, no research has documented the effects of center-based settings on doubly vulnerable children’s early development, either relative to other ECE settings (e.g., home-based care) or relative to each other (e.g., Head Start, public preK). The current study utilizes national data and estimates difference-in-differences models to assess the effects of these ECE setting comparisons on changes in doubly vulnerable children’s academic and social-emotional outcomes evident at kindergarten entry. Results suggest that center-based ECE is more beneficial than parental care for language and literacy, and more beneficial than home-based care for prosocial behaviors. There were few differences among center-based ECE types: At trend level, Head Start was linked with better approaches to learning and prosocial skills relative to public preK.

Extensive research has documented the school readiness benefits that publicly funded, center-based early care and education (ECE) can produce for children growing up in poverty (e.g., Phillips et al., 2017; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). A parallel stream of studies focused on children with special needs has provided consistent evidence that early intervention programs can alter their developmental trajectories as well (e.g., Brown & Conroy, 2011; Farran, 2000; Guralnick, 2005; Odom et al., 2011). The pressing question is whether this conclusion extends to regular, publicly funded center-based ECE programs that are not designed specifically as therapeutic interventions for low-income children with special needs but that are now experiencing an influx of these young children.

There are reasons to believe that publicly funded center-based ECE serving low-income children and families may be just as—if not more—effective at boosting the school readiness skills of children with or at risk for special needs (referred to as “doubly vulnerable” herein; Guralnick, 1998) as for their typically developing low-income peers. Principally, center-based ECE programs, as distinct from home-based or parental care arrangements, prioritize the inclusion of doubly vulnerable children alongside a majority of children without special needs (Division for Early Childhood & National Association for the Education for Young Children, 2009; Odom et al., 2011; U.S. Department of Education [DoEd] & U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2015). Inclusive approaches to early education have been found to enhance doubly vulnerable children’s social and cognitive skills (Green et al., 2013; Holahan & Costenbader, 2000; Odom et al., 2004; Phillips et al., 2015; Phillips & Meloy, 2012). Moreover, relative to alternative ECE arrangements, ECE centers place a greater emphasis on school readiness skills; may be more likely to provide special education–specific resources, such as therapists and psychologists (Essa et al., 2008; Henly & Adams, 2018; Weglarz-Ward & Santos, 2018); and may help ease transitions from preschool to kindergarten (Carlson et al., 2009; Rous et al., 2010).

The small handful of studies that have estimated effects of publicly funded center-based ECE on doubly vulnerable children’s academic, social-emotional, and self-regulatory outcomes have chiefly reported positive associations (Bloom & Weiland, 2015; Phillips & Meloy, 2012; Weiland, 2016), with one exception (Sullivan et al., 2019). Yet, the extant research has not collectively examined the full array of publicly funded center-based ECE programs attended by doubly vulnerable children in a single analysis, and thus, the relative benefits of their different inclusion models are unknown. This militates against two types of comparisons: first, between ECE settings—centers, family child care homes, and parental care—among which inclusive and quality features most dramatically vary; and second, between publicly funded center-based ECE types where the availability and effectiveness of these features also may vary (Bassok et al., 2016; Coley et al., 2016; Johnson, Martin, et al., 2019). The current study is the first to provide evidence regarding the capacity of publicly funded center-based ECE programs—both taken together relative to alternative ECE arrangements and relative to one another—to promote the school readiness outcomes of low-income children with or at risk for special needs.

Double Vulnerability in Early Childhood

Disparities in the school readiness of our nation’s youngest children observable as early as kindergarten entry are most often portrayed in relation to socioeconomic status. Compared to more economically advantaged children, children who spend their crucial early childhood years in low-income households walk through the kindergarten door with fewer key literacy and math skills (e.g., Duncan et al., 1998; Sabol & Pianta, 2012) and less mature social-emotional skills (e.g., Fabes et al., 2006).

At the same time, equally alarming gaps in academic and social-emotional outcomes characterize children with and without special needs (U.S. DoEd & U.S. DHHS, 2015). For example, because many children with special needs experience executive functioning deficits (e.g., Gathercole et al., 2006; Liebman & Goodman, 1995) and social challenges associated with entering peer groups, sustaining reciprocal interactions, and social problem solving (e.g., Gresham & McMillan, 1997; Odom et al., 2006), they tend to have fewer one-on-one friendships and are rated as being less desirable playmates by their peers. This can lead to experiences of social isolation and rejection (Odom et al., 2006), which in turn create fewer opportunities to build social skills. Many children with special needs also manifest slower language development, but even more common are challenges with acquiring early mathematics concepts (Van Luit & Schopman, 2000), perhaps due to the well-documented association between executive functions and math development (e.g., Mazzocco & Kover, 2007).

More disadvantageous still is when poverty and special needs coincide. This intersection of socioeconomic and biologically based risk presents what Guralnick (1998) terms a “double vulnerability” that widens the already-significant achievement gaps between young children with a single vulnerability and their peers. For example, a study by Hillemeier and colleagues (2011) found that children with both a cognitive delay at 24 months and lower socioeconomic status are at an elevated risk of developing persistent developmental delays at 48 months relative to children with either vulnerability alone.

Additionally, the mere prevalence of low-income children with or at risk for special needs makes them a highly policy-relevant subgroup. Estimates from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study indicate that more than one-quarter (27%) of children ages 3 to 5 with disabilities are from households with income levels of $20,000 or less (Carlson et al., 2009). Other national estimates are similar: For instance, the National Early Intervention Longitudinal Study (NEILS) identified 28% of the sample as living at or below the federal poverty level (FPL) and an additional 23% living within 101% to 200% of the FPL (Hebbeler et al., 2007). Given the prevalence of double vulnerability in early childhood, it is unsurprising that low-income children with or at risk for special needs are an explicit focus of investments in early interventions and policies. Central among these investments is publicly funded ECE.

Inclusive ECE for Children With Special Needs

ECE is a promising platform for supporting the school readiness of young children who are deemed vulnerable as a result of growing up in a low-income household or who are racial or ethnic minorities or from non-English-speaking households (e.g., Calderon & Greenberg, 1997; Phillips et al., 2017; Phillips & Lowenstein, 2011; Yoshikawa & McCartney, 2014). Children whose vulnerability derives from being at risk for or having special needs are now joining their typically developing peers in ECE in growing numbers. For instance, half of the families participating in the NEILS indicated that their child had been in a preschool or child care arrangement in the year prior to kindergarten (Hebbeler et al., 2007), and two-thirds of children ages 3 through 5 under Part B of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are now enrolled in an inclusive center-based ECE program (U.S. DoEd, 2014). The capacity of ECE programs to foster school readiness for doubly vulnerable children warrants serious attention, given that children who enter kindergarten with low skills tend to remain at very low levels of school performance over time (Hibel et al., 2010; Hillemeier et al., 2011; Morgan et al., 2009; Reardon, 2011).

The growth in the proportion of children with special needs enrolled in ECE programs alongside their typically developing peers has been fueled by a combination of factors, including the legislative priority placed on inclusive education, preventive approaches to early intervention in special education policy and practice, and widespread expansions in state preK programs over the past decade (e.g. Friedman-Krauss et al., 2019), which, by law, cannot discriminate against children with disabilities. Inclusion refers to the goal that children with special needs have full and equal access to all ECE resources and experiences as their typically developing peers in the classroom. Passed by the 101st U.S. Congress in 1975, Part B of the IDEA first prioritized educating children with special needs in the “least restrictive environment” alongside young children without special needs to the maximum extent possible (IDEA, 1997), and in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) similarly instructed that children with special needs be included in schoolwide testing to assess compliance with adequate-yearly-progress standards (NCLB, 2001). In 2015, the U.S. DoEd and U.S. DHHS released a joint policy statement promoting inclusion as states continue to expand their public preschool programs. Today, roughly 75% of preschool-age children with special needs who are enrolled in center-based preschool programs are in inclusive programs, and only 25% of these children are in therapeutic or special education–only ECE centers (U.S. DoEd, 2019).

ECE Arrangements for Low-Income Children With Special Needs

Low-income children with or at risk for special needs attend a variety of inclusive, primarily publicly funded ECE programs. When not cared for by parents or relatives, inclusive ECE programs serving these children are either center or home based and publicly or privately funded. Publicly funded center-based ECE that serves doubly vulnerable children occurs in Head Start centers (which are required to reserve 10% of slots for this population, irrespective of family income), state- or locally funded school-based public prekindergarten, or community-based centers (CBCs) that may both receive public funding directly and serve children whose care is funded via federal child care subsidies or Part C of the IDEA. In 2017, approximately 450,000 children with special needs attended a state-funded public preK program (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2018), and 115,000 children with special needs attended a Head Start program (U.S. DHHS, 2019). Six states guarantee child care subsidies for low-income children with special needs and an additional 28 states and territories currently give these families priority under certain circumstances (Tran et al., 2018).

Of course, inclusive ECE for doubly vulnerable children is not all publicly funded or center based. Unsubsidized CBCs include centers that offer scholarships (e.g., a local YMCA or community center), religious institutions (e.g., a church preschool), or other out-of-the-market low- and no-cost options. Outside of state licensing requirements, unsubsidized CBC arrangements are not subject to regulations that would be hypothesized to promote inclusivity. Indeed, one study reported that on average, just 4% of students in unsubsidized center-based classrooms serving low-income children across the nation had special needs as compared to 12% in Head Start, 18% in school-based public preK, and 13% in subsidized center-based settings (Johnson, Martin, et al., 2019). Another publication utilizing data from 2012 estimates that approximately 9% of children in nonpublic center-based ECE settings serving low-income children had special needs (Johnson et al., 2020).

As compared to center-based settings, data on the extent to which home-based settings provide inclusive ECE to low-income children with or at-risk for special needs are unavailable. Home-based settings include care provided by a family member, friend, or neighbor in the provider’s or the child’s home and can be subsidized or unsubsidized. On the one hand, although some home-based providers are required to register and meet specific licensing requirements in most states, they are much more likely to be unregulated than center-based alternatives (Coley et al., 2016; Rigby et al., 2007) and thus beyond the reach of inclusion policies and regulations. On the other hand, home-based ECE offers more flexible hours and homelike settings that may be especially desirable for families with doubly vulnerable children (Weglarz-Ward & Santos, 2018). Indeed, these families have been reported to be more likely than families with typically developing children to use informal or home-based care arrangements (Booth & Kelly, 1999; Booth-LaForce & Kelly, 2004; Henly & Adams, 2018). However, at least among low-income families, limited research indicates that families of children with special needs favor center-based programs, perhaps because they are frequently publicly funded (Wall et al., 2006).

Effects of Inclusive ECE on Doubly Vulnerable Children’s School Readiness

Theoretically, inclusive ECE settings, particularly federally or locally regulated center-based programs, give doubly vulnerable children ample opportunities to initiate, model, and extend their oral language skills (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2012) and build social skills and relationships (Odom, 2000) with typically developing peers. For these children with the most “room to grow,” interactions with more skilled peers and teachers offer the chance to hear and experiment with more complex language and early literacy concepts (Green et al., 2013; Holahan & Costenbader, 2000; Phillips & Meloy, 2012). Inclusive center-based ECE also provides the stage for children’s first encounters with unfamiliar peers and thus serves as a proving ground for the development of empathy, acceptance, tolerance, and social skills (Hauser-Cram et al., 1993; Killen et al., 2011; Odom et al., 2004; Stoneham, 2001). For children with special needs who disproportionately face social exclusion, inclusive center-based ECE settings that offer these opportunities might be especially important.

Because center-based ECE settings typically have more staff, materials, and children enrolled, they are likely to give doubly vulnerable children more opportunities to experiment with these language exchanges and peer interactions than home-based ECE or parental care alone. Moreover, center-based ECE may be better positioned to link families to resources such as therapists and psychologists beyond what they would receive in home-based or parental care (Essa et al., 2008; Henly & Adams, 2018; Weglarz-Ward & Santos, 2018). Yet, only four studies have zeroed in on the publicly funded ECE options available to doubly vulnerable children; one examined Head Start, two examined public preK programs, and one examined the child care subsidy program (Bloom & Weiland, 2015; Phillips & Meloy, 2012; Sullivan et al., 2019; Weiland, 2016). These studies have reported positive effects from Head Start and public preK and negative results for child care subsidies on developmental outcomes.

Specifically, an analysis of the national Head Start Impact Study found that 1 year of Head Start predicts small gains in special-needs children’s receptive vocabulary skills but not in other areas, such as math, literacy, and social-emotional development (Bloom & Weiland, 2015). In Tulsa, Oklahoma, children with mild to moderate developmental delays who attended the public preK program made significant gains in literacy skills at the start of kindergarten—gains of the same magnitude as those exhibited by their typically developing classmates (Phillips & Meloy, 2012). However, the children’s early math skills did not demonstrate similarly significant gains. With respect to social-emotional outcomes, children with special needs in Tulsa who experienced preK engaged in significantly less attention-seeking behavior in kindergarten, perhaps suggesting enhanced competence and independence (Phillips et al., 2015). In Boston, children with special needs who attended the city’s preK program benefited as much as or more than their typically developing peers (Weiland, 2016): Children with special needs realized similarly moderate gains in their language and mathematics skills and considerably larger gains in their executive function skills. They also showed larger gains on attention and impulse control, compared to no such effects on these skills for typically developing children. In contrast, in 2019, a study using nationally representative data and propensity-score-matching methods reported negative associations between federally subsidized child care and early literacy and numeracy for doubly vulnerable children (Sullivan et al., 2019), although this research estimated the effects of subsidized center- and home-based arrangements together.

Although these prior studies evaluating the effects of distinct publicly funded ECE on doubly vulnerable children’s outcomes provide a foundation for the current study, they leave unanswered questions around how different inclusive center-based ECE types compare to each other—and, more broadly, how they compare to home-based and parental care arrangements—regarding their influences on doubly vulnerable children’s school readiness. Until now, no study has included center-based arrangements of different types, home-based care, and parental settings in a single analysis to assess the benefits of each for the development of doubly vulnerable children.

Until now, no study has included center-based arrangements of different types, home-based care, and parental settings in a single analysis

Current Study

The present study uses data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). The ECLS-B includes data on all center-based and home-based ECE types—public and private—as well as information on family income, children’s special-needs risk status, and both academic and social-emotional skills from birth through kindergarten entry. We limit our analyses to doubly vulnerable children over this span and implement difference-in-differences (DiD) regression models to pursue two as-of-yet-unanswered questions.

First, we test the hypothesis that inclusive center-based ECE settings will more effectively promote doubly vulnerable children’s academic and social-emotional outcomes at kindergarten entry relative to those children who attend home-based ECE or receive parental care only, as they have been found to do for low-income children in general (Yoshikawa et al., 2013). We build on compensatory theories of education (e.g., Sameroff & Chandler, 1975), which posit that center-based ECE settings that provide more intensive compensatory instruction and peer interaction opportunities should generate larger school readiness effects, particularly when children have more “room to grow” (Bloom & Weiland, 2015).

Second, we explore the potential for effect variation within center-based ECE programs. As previously described, studies estimating center-based ECE effects on doubly vulnerable children report contradictory results—that Head Start and public preK programs boost children’s academic and social-emotional skills whereas subsidized center-based settings hinder children’s academic abilities. Because there is substantial variation in classroom quality across center-based ECE types (e.g., Bassok et al., 2016; Coley et al., 2016; Johnson, Martin, et al., 2019), we hypothesize that when compared within the same data, those center-based ECE types known to provide higher-quality ECE experiences—Head Start and publicly funded preK—may be particularly effective. Further, patterns of effects by type of center may vary with developmental domain. For instance, among low-income children (Zhai et al., 2011) including those with difficult temperaments (Johnson, Finch, et al., 2019), Head Start is more promotive of kindergarten social-emotional skills than school-based preK. The stronger supports for social-emotional development provided by Head Start (Jenkins et al., 2016; Johnson, Finch, et al., 2019) and its years of experience in providing inclusive education may be especially advantageous for doubly vulnerable children (Phillips et al., 2011).

Method

Data Source

Data for the current study are drawn from the ECLS-B, which is the first nationally representative study designed to characterize the early home and learning experiences of young children, from birth through kindergarten. The ECLS-B sampled 14,000 children, approximately 10,700 of whom participated in the baseline wave of data collection (Wave 1) in 2001 when they were roughly 9 months of age. Three subsequent data collection waves followed: Wave 2 in 2003, when children were 2 years old; Wave 3 in 2005–2006, when children were preschool age (approximately age 4); and Wave 4 in 2006–2007, when they were in kindergarten. At each wave, the child’s primary caregiver was interviewed and the children’s academic and social-emotional development were directly assessed. At Wave 3, ECE providers completed phone interviews about their program and the children served. For children in center-based ECE at Wave 3, center directors also completed questionnaires about program characteristics, including funding source, program type, and auspice.

Analytic Sample

We first restrict the sample to children in families with incomes defined at 185% or less of the FPL at Wave 3 (n ≈ 4,150; we round all sample sizes to the nearest 50 as per National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] reporting protocols). We conduct this initial income restriction at Wave 3 to best ensure that children are classified as low income when they are first observed in their preschool year. In this initial low-income sample, approximately 3,800 children were directly assessed on their early academic skills, and 2,700 children were rated by teachers on their social-emotional skills, in both preschool and kindergarten (26% of children in the analytic sample were missing teacher reports at either wave, most frequently because they were cared for exclusively by parents in preschool). We further restrict this low-income sample to the approximately 1,450 children who we also define as at risk for or having special needs (see Measures). Because we limit the analytic sample to doubly vulnerable children with nonmissing outcome data (e.g., survey—not item—nonresponse), to reduce bias, we follow recommendations to include only cases with unimputed outcome variables in analytic models (Von Hippel, 2007; White et al., 2011).

We weight all analyses using NCES-constructed longitudinal weights (WK1C0 for academic outcomes and WK45T0 for social-emotional outcomes), which adjust for both the complex sampling strategy of the data and attrition across waves. This permits us to draw inference on a sample that is nationally representative of children born in the United States in 2001. Because the study sampled children directly, children are not nested in ECE centers or classrooms. We conduct all analyses using Stata 15.

Measures

Special-Needs Status

Because certain ECE settings may more effectively diagnose special needs than others (Shapiro & Weiland, 2019), we define special-needs risk status at Wave 2—the wave preceding ECE entry—to reduce the potential for order effects. Determining special-needs status approximately 2 years before children enter preschool (Wave 2), rather than at the start of the preschool year (Wave 3), reduces the likelihood that a child’s special-needs diagnosis is endogenous to their family’s ECE experiences.

We code a child as having or being at risk for special needs at Wave 2 if one or more of the following criteria were met: (a) a parent self-reported a child’s disability; (b) a parent reported that the child received an individualized family service plan (IFSP), which qualifies children for early intervention services; (c) the child had low cognitive ability as defined by a directly assessed Bayley Mental Scale score greater than or equal to one standard deviation below the mean for the low-income child sample; (d) if a child was identified as low-birth-weight status or small for gestational age based on their birth certificate or both (Table 1). As such, we rely on a broader definition of special-needs risk status (Newacheck et al., 2006) that includes children at known elevated risk for future special needs alongside those with diagnosed special needs at age 2. Indeed, although only 18% of the at-risk sample had received a formal special-needs diagnosis via a parent-reported IFSP at age 2, over 31% of children had received an IFSP or individualized education program (IEP) by preschool, and 40% had received an IEP by the start of kindergarten.

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics for Low-Income Children With Special Needs by ECE Setting and Type at Preschool.

Variable	Center-based setting								Home-based setting		Parental care setting
	Head Start		Public preK		Subsidized CBC		UnsubsidizedCBC		Home-based setting		Parental care setting
	M or %	SE	M or %	SE	M or %	SE	M or %	SE	M or %	SE	M or %	SE	p
Child characteristics
Number of special-needs identifiers	1.43	0.06	1.39	0.07	1.58	0.13	1.31	0.07	1.37	0.05	1.32	0.05
Parent-reported disability	26.48		26.62		36.71		27.86		35.94		32.30
IFSP	13.38		12.72		21.65		7.88		10.68		4.90		**
Low cognition	76.61		80.87		81.01		80.56		71.78		78.28
Low birth weight	5.65		6.41		7.36		9.10		5.18		5.55
Small for gestational age	24.89		18.98		25.87		10.42		21.32		13.86
Academic skills
Math	23.76	1.21	23.02	1.03	21.27	1.34	26.46	1.74	22.00	0.86	20.39	0.74	*
Language and literacy	19.81	0.85	20.24	0.72	17.98	1.01	21.90	1.37	17.53	0.50	18.39	1.00	***
Social-emotional skills
Externalizing behaviors	2.20	0.13	2.30	0.12	2.47	0.16	2.14	0.21	2.43	0.09	—	—
Prosocial behaviors	3.52	0.08	3.35	0.12	3.44	0.12	3.58	0.12	3.65	0.05	—	—
Approaches to learning	3.61	0.10	3.22	0.12	3.43	0.11	3.70	0.16	3.55	0.07	—	—
Gender (male)	61.80		60.73		58.75		66.29		62.31		57.52
Age (months)	52.47	0.34	53.61	0.53	53.31	0.62	53.28	0.74	52.14	0.46	51.98	0.41
Overweight BMI	45.58		29.26		32.72		44.98		36.58		43.71
Maternal characteristics
Race-ethnicity
White	21.24		28.06		43.11		27.61		42.32		37.03
Black	23.06		24.61		31.45		28.79		16.70		17.53
Hispanic	46.92		38.13		10.79		36.49		34.21		39.76		*
Asian or other	8.78		9.19		14.65		7.11		6.77		5.68
Marital status
Married	48.35		42.48		42.68		41.24		45.65		54.36
Cohabitating	18.60		30.97		15.07		21.58		16.07		22.27
Single (was married)	6.50		10.43		14.64		7.44		13.95		3.52
Single (never married)	26.56		16.12		27.61		29.74		24.32		19.85
Mother over age 20 at birth	78.74		81.09		85.37		86.84		78.32		87.49
Fluent in English	81.10		75.49		86.00		78.32		83.36		75.24
Employment status^a
Full-time	25.84		29.82		42.38		46.59		55.81		15.94		***
Part-time	18.53		16.76		15.63		10.26		15.66		10.77
Job search	14.00		11.56		12.22		5.81		11.88		5.53
Unemployed	41.63		41.86		29.77		37.34		16.65		67.76		***
In vocational training	7.90		.15		4.07		0.68		4.04		2.49		*
Enrolled in school	12.79		12.08		18.24		15.77		19.23		6.28
Highest education level^a
Less than high school	44.59		26.40		9.67		20.44		24.80		48.27		***
High school/GED	32.89		43.96		52.64		42.86		38.35		37.77
Some college/AA	20.49		23.13		28.50		32.61		33.45		13.29		*
BA or above	2.02		6.51		9.19		4.09		3.40		0.67		*
Household characteristics
Family size	4.04	0.13	4.28	0.19	3.70	0.22	4.02	0.13	4.13	0.16	4.44	0.14	*
Number children 6 years or younger	0.74	0.09	0.80	0.12	0.69	0.12	0.88	0.12	0.81	0.09	0.86	0.07
Number of children over 6 year	0.76	0.08	0.80	0.13	0.64	0.15	0.53	0.14	0.79	0.12	0.91	0.11
Annual household income^a	18,216	1,060	21,997	1,240	20,539	1,491	23,384	1,555	23,927	1,170	20,456	949	*
Received any public benefits	83.62		91.95		88.28		74.51		79.25		84.85
Income-to-needs ratio^a	0.94	0.05	1.08	0.07	1.15	0.09	1.25	0.08	1.22	0.05	1.00	0.05	*
Household is food insecure^a	44.47		47.56		45.68		37.06		51.75		53.44
Urban (vs. rural or suburban)	70.22		69.58		68.50		81.38		65.16		74.08
Sample size^b	300		200		150		200		300		300

Note. Data are drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort 9-month kindergarten restricted use data file. N ≈ 1,450. Sample is limited to low-income families at the 2-year interview (Wave 2) with children defined as special needs at Wave 3 and with nonmissing outcome data. Descriptives are weighted using jackknife replicate weights WK1C1-90 for all descriptives and academic outcomes and WK45T1-90 for social-emotional outcomes. ECE = Means and standard errors are provided for continuos variables and percentages for categorical variables early childhood education; IFSP = individualized family service plan; GED = general equivalency diploma.

Variable change also predictive of change in child outcomes between preschool and kindergarten.

Rounded to the nearest 50 per National Center for Education Statistics data security requirements.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

ECE Setting Type

Our independent variables are, for the first research question, Wave 3 ECE setting type (center based, home based, and parental care only) and, for the second research question, center-based ECE subtype (Head Start, school-based public preK, subsidized CBCs, and unsubsidized CBCs). To code these variables, we draw on Wave 3 ECE provider and center director reports and verify this information using items from the Wave 3 parent interview (Johnson et al., 2013; Johnson & Herbst, 2013; Johnson, Martin, et al., 2019). We classify children as attending a Head Start classroom if their center director and ECE provider identified this arrangement, and we categorize children as being enrolled in school-based public preK if, according to providers and administrators, their preK program was in a public school setting. Next, if families in a center-based setting whose provider reported serving children funded by the child care subsidy program also reported receiving public funds for ECE costs, we assigned them to a subsidized (vs. unsubsidized) CBC arrangement. We categorize the remaining children as receiving home-based care if their primary arrangement was in a home-based setting, and we classify children who did not attend either center- or home-based arrangements as receiving parental care only.

Child Outcomes

Our analytic strategy relies on repeated measures of children’s academic and social-emotional skills assessed at the start of preschool and kindergarten.

Academic skills

Children’s early language and literacy and math skills were directly assessed using age-appropriate tools developed for the ECLS studies (Najarian et al., 2010). Language and literacy assessments evaluated children’s prereading skills and comprehension of reading concepts, including knowledge of letters, letter sounds, written words, and children’s expressive and receptive language. Language and literacy scores range from 11.7 to 82.5 points. Math assessments evaluated each child’s number sense, number operations, number properties, measurement, spatial abilities, and geometry. Both measures demonstrate high reliability (α_preK = .89; α_K = .93; Najarian et al., 2010). Math scores range from 9.8 to 69.7 points.

Social-emotional skills

ECE providers and kindergarten teachers rated each focal child’s externalizing behavior problems, prosocial behaviors, and approaches to learning. Items that load onto each of these scales were drawn from the Social Skills Rating Scale (Gresham & Elliot, 1991) and the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales–Second Edition (Merrell, 2003). Teachers were asked to rate the frequency of each raw item on 5-point Likert scale (1 = behavior never observed to 5 = behavior observed very often). The Externalizing Behavior Problems composites average responses to seven items that assess children’s impulsivity, disruptive behavior, hyperactivity, and physical and emotional aggression (α_preK = .97; α_K = .95). The Prosocial Behaviors scales average responses to six items that capture the degree to which children are accepted by their peers, how easily children make friends, and how effectively children share with, stand up for, comfort, and exhibit empathy toward others (α_preK = .97; α_K = .93). The Approaches to Learning scale averages five items rating children’s attentiveness, focus, ability to complete tasks, independence, and eagerness to learn (α_preK = .96; α_K = .92).

Prior measures of child skills

To best assess the growth trajectories of doubly vulnerable children prior to their preschool year, we also consider early measures of children’s cognition and behavior collected at Waves 1 and 2. Both constructs are drawn from the Bayley Short Form–Research Edition (Bayley, 1993). To assess parallel trends in children’s academic skills, we utilize the Bayley Mental Scale, and to assess parallel trends in children’s social-emotional skills, we draw from the Bayley Behavior Rating Scale (see Analytic Strategy). Because, for example, the cognitive skills of a preverbal infant or a newly verbal toddler are assessed differently than those of a preschooler or kindergartener, we lack true repeated outcome measures. In their absence, the Bayley mental and behavior scores are accepted approximations (e.g., Johnson & Markowitz, 2018; Magnuson et al., 2009; Schochet et al., 2020) and are sufficiently predictive of academic and social-emotional outcomes in the current sample (Figure 1). Bayley Mental Scale scores range from 0 to 178, and Bayley behavior scores range from 1 to 5.

Figure 1.

Correlations between Bayley mental and behavior scores at Wave 2 and children’s academic and social-emotional outcomes at preschool entry.

Sample Characteristics

We draw from an exceptionally rich set of Wave 3 demographic and economic characteristics to describe the sample (Table 1).

Child, parent, and household characteristics

Child characteristics include child age, gender, and body mass index overweight as a function of child gender and age (at or above 85th percentile; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015; Hillemeier, Lanza, et al., 2013). Maternal characteristics include race and ethnicity, English fluency, whether mother was or was not a teenager at birth of focal child, highest level of education, employment status, and enrollment in school or vocational training or both. Household characteristics include urbanicity, parents’ marital status, father presence in the household, receipt of any social programs (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; Medicaid; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), household income, income-to-needs ratio, family size, and number of children (over 7 years and 7 years or under).

Analytic Strategy

DiD methods have gained wide acceptance as an approach to model natural experiments in economics and the social sciences (e.g., Card, 1990; Card & Krueger, 1994). We utilize this quasiexperimental design to obtain appropriate counterfactuals to estimate the effects first of ECE setting and then of center-based ECE type on doubly vulnerable children’s outcomes. We conduct falsification tests to provide evidence that the average outcomes by treated group would have followed parallel trends over time in the absence of children’s different ECE experiences.

DiD Estimation

We extend a basic DiD framework (e.g., Ashenfelter & Card, 1985) to account for multiple preschool arrangements attended by doubly vulnerable children. We first estimate effects by setting type and then further disaggregate center-based treatment effects. Let Y(_i,t) represent a given outcome for child i at time t. We observe all children at a pretreatment period, t_i = 0 (Wave 3) and a posttreatment period, t_i = 1 (kindergarten entry). In the interim, children attend an ECE setting notated by the dummy D_n(i, t), where n takes the value of each possible ECE setting type.

With repeated cross-sections, we can write the generic linear model for a random individual in treatment group n (relative to all other treatments) as

Y_{i} = α + β_{1} D_{(n, i)} + δ_{0} t_{i} + δ_{1} (D_{(n, i)} * t_{i}) + u,

where $D_{(n, i)}$ captures the first difference between preschool treatment n and controls at Wave 3, the time period dummy $t_{i}$ captures aggregate factors that would change the outcome over time independent of ECE experiences, and the coefficient of interest on the interaction term, $δ_{1}$ , is the product of the treatment dummy and the time dummy. This DiD estimate can alternatively be written such that

{\hat{δ}}_{1} = [{\bar{Y}}_{(n = 1, t = 1)} - {\bar{Y}}_{(n = 1, t = 0)}] - [{\bar{Y}}_{(n = 0, t = 1)} - {\bar{Y}}_{(n = 0, t = 0)}]

where ${\hat{δ}}_{1}$ captures the difference in the average change in outcome scores between preschool and kindergarten for children in the treatment group relative to the control group.

We simply alter this generic model by estimating all pairwise contrasts for values of n; as previously explained, we aim to estimate effects across multiple treatment groups, which requires a rotating counterfactual. A generic model estimating the effects of ECE setting type (n = 1 [center based], n = 2 [home based], n = 3 [parental care; omitted]) on a given academic outcome Y would be expressed as

\begin{array}{l} Y_{i} = α + β_{1} D_{(n = 1, i)} + β_{2} D_{(n = 2, i)} + δ_{0} t_{i} \\ + δ_{1} (D_{(n = 1, i)} * t_{i}) + δ_{2} (D_{(n = 2, i)} * t_{i}) + u \end{array}

′

where

{\hat{δ}}_{1} = [{\bar{Y}}_{(n = 1, t = 1)} - {\bar{Y}}_{(n = 1, t = 0)}] - [{\bar{Y}}_{(n = 0, t = 1)} - {\bar{Y}}_{(n = 0, t = 0)}]

and

{\hat{δ}}_{2} = [{\bar{Y}}_{(n = 2, t = 1)} - {\bar{Y}}_{(n = 2, t = 0)}] - [{\bar{Y}}_{(n = 0, t = 1)} - {\bar{Y}}_{(n = 0, t = 0)}] .

ECE setting type takes on only two values (n =1[center based], n = 2 [home based; omitted]) in models predicting effects on social-emotional outcomes because these outcomes are missing for children in parental care only at Wave 3.

We use the same approach to estimate effects of center-based ECE type on the subgroup of doubly vulnerable children who attended a center-based ECE arrangement at Wave 3 (n = 1 [Head Start], n = 2 [public preK], n = 3 [subsidized CBC], n = 4 [unsubsidized CBC]). As before, we rotate the reference category to compare effects of each treatment level to all others. We do not control for covariates (or the changes in covariates over time) because they may correlate with the error term and lead to bias. In other words, the time-varying factors that are associated with changes in children’s outcomes (family income, educational attainment, and employment; see Table 1) may themselves be influenced by families’ ECE experiences (Blau & Tekin, 2007; Gelbach, 2002; Sabol & Chase-Lansdale, 2015; Schochet & Johnson, 2019).

Testing for Parallel Trends

One potential source of bias in DiD is that the observed effects were in fact preexisting—in this case, prior to Wave 3 (e.g., Abadie, 2005; Angrist & Krueger, 1999). Thus, it is necessary to test what is otherwise an assumption of parallel trends in children’s pretreatment outcomes—that in the counterfactual condition, children who selected into different ECE settings would have developed at a constant and parallel rate. To test this assumption, we examine analogous measures of academic and social-emotional outcomes at an earlier pair of time points. Because the outcome measures collected at Waves 3 and 4 are not appropriate for and therefore were not collected on younger children, we instead examine a pair of comparable outcomes measured both at Waves 1 and 2 (see Measures). Here, we estimate DiD equations predicting change in Bayley mental and behavior scores measured between Wave 1 (t_i = 0) and Wave 2 (t_i = 1) while continuing to group children according to their Wave 3 ECE arrangements.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 presents a wide array of descriptive statistics, by ECE arrangement, to compare children and their families. We conduct omnibus tests—using the χ² distribution for categorical variables and the F distribution for continuous items—to descriptively assess differences across ECE groups.

Sample Characteristics

Across ECE setting types, children with or at risk for special needs did not vary in how we classified their special need, with the exception of IFSP status. There is no significant variation in the likelihood of having a parent-reported disability, low cognition, low birth weight, or being small for gestational age; and on average, the number of criteria with which children were identified does not vary by ECE group. We do observe variation in IFSP receipt, whereby children in subsidized arrangements are more likely (22%) to have received an IFSP than children in other ECE categories (likelihoods ranging from 5% in parental care arrangements to 14% in Head Start centers). However, less than 1% of the sample is categorized based only on IFSP receipt and not also by one or more of the additional criteria that are balanced across ECE groups.

Low-income children with special needs in unsubsidized CBCs have the highest average math (M = 26.46, SE = 1.74) and language and literacy (M = 21.90, SE = 1.37) scores, whereas children in parental care score lowest on math assessments (M = 20.39, SE = 0.74), and children in home-based settings score lowest on language and literacy assessments (M = 17.53, SE = 0.50) at preschool entry. Doubly vulnerable children do not vary across ECE arrangements in terms of age, gender, overweight status, or social-emotional skills. We do not observe variation in mothers’ marital status, age at child’s birth, or English fluency. Mothers in subsidized CBC arrangements are less likely to be Hispanic (11%), but we do not observe ECE variation in other race and ethnicity categories. Mothers in parental care arrangements have the lowest levels of education (48.27% have less than a high school degree), closely followed by mothers in Head Start arrangements known to serve the most economically disadvantaged families. Indeed, families in Head Start have both the lowest household income (M = $18,216, SE = $1,060) and the lowest income-to-needs ratio (M = .94, SE = .05) of any ECE group. Families who care for their own children have the largest family size (M = 4.44, SE = 0.14), and 54% of these families are headed by married parents. Mothers in parental care arrangements are the least likely to be employed full-time (15.94%).

DiD Models

Effects of ECE Setting Type

Table 2 presents the results from DiD models predicting effects of ECE setting type on children’s academic (center vs. home vs. parental) and social-emotional (center vs. home) outcomes by kindergarten entry. Doubly vulnerable children in center-based settings increase their language and literacy test scores from preschool to kindergarten by 2.98 points more than those in parental care (SE = 1.30, p = .02). Doubly vulnerable children in home-based ECE also demonstrate a language and literacy advantage in kindergarten over their peers in parental care (b = 3.23), but due to greater variance in change scores for children in these arrangements, this estimate is only marginally significant (SE = 1.95, p = .10). There are no significant effects of ECE setting type on doubly vulnerable children’s kindergarten math skills.

Table 2.

Effect of ECE Setting Type on Kindergarten Outcomes for Doubly Vulnerable Children.

Variable	Math			Language andliteracy			Externalizing behaviors			Prosocial behaviors			Approaches to learning
Variable	b	SE	p	b	SE	p	b	SE	p	b	SE	p	b	SE	p
Referencing parental care only
Time effect (t = Wave 4)	10.49	1.02	.00	9.04	1.05	.00	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Center based	3.32	0.94	.00	1.65	1.08	.13	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Home based	1.61	1.25	.20	–0.86	1.17	.46	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Center Based × t	–0.21	1.05	.84	2.98	1.30	.02	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Home Based × t	0.74	1.59	.65	3.23	1.95	.10	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Constant	20.39	0.74	.00	18.39	1.00	.00	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Referencing home-based care
Time effect (t = Wave 4)	11.22	0.98	.00	12.27	1.41	.00	–0.29	0.13	.03	–0.20	0.09	.04	–0.20	0.12	.10
Center based	1.71	1.17	.15	2.52	0.71	.00	–0.24	0.16	.13	–0.36	0.10	.00	–0.15	0.12	.21
Parental	–1.61	1.25	.20	0.86	1.17	.46	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Center Based × t	–0.94	1.26	.46	–0.25	1.61	.88	0.13	0.15	.39	0.33	0.10	.00	0.15	0.12	.22
Parental × t	–0.74	1.59	.65	–3.23	1.95	.10	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Constant	22.00	0.86	.00	17.53	0.50	.00	2.59	0.13	.00	3.75	0.09	.00	3.65	0.11	.00
Sample size (N)^a	1,450			1,450			1,150			1,150			1,150

Note. Data are drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort 9-month kindergarten restricted use data file. N ≈ 1,450. Sample is limited to low-income families at the 2-year interview (Wave 2) with children defined as special needs at Wave 3 and with nonmissing outcome data. Models are weighted using jackknife replicate weights WK1C1-90 for academic outcomes and WK45T1-90 for social-emotional outcomes. ECE = early childhood education; t = indicator of kindergarten record (Wave 4) versus preschool record (Wave 3).

Rounded to the nearest 50 per National Center for Education Statistics data security requirements.

With respect to social-emotional outcomes, doubly vulnerable children in center-based ECE demonstrated more growth in prosocial behaviors than their peers in home-based ECE (b = 0.33, SE = 0.10, p < .001) such that children in center-based ECE who begin preschool with prosocial behavior scores 0.36 points below children in home-based care effectively converge with their home-based peers at kindergarten entry (Figure 2). We do not observe significant effects of ECE setting type on teacher ratings of externalizing behaviors or approaches to learning for any comparison.

Figure 2.

Doubly vulnerable children’s skill trajectories for significant academic and social-emotional outcomes by early childhood education setting type.

Effects of Center-Based ECE Types

Among doubly vulnerable children in center-based ECE, there were no statistically significant differences in academic outcomes across center-based types (Table 3). For social-emotional outcomes, children in Head Start demonstrated more growth in prosocial behaviors (b = 0.26, SE = 0.14, p = .06) and approaches to learning (b = 0.33, SE = 0.18, p = .07) than their peers in public school–based preK but only at marginal levels.

Table 3.

Effect of ECE Center-Based Subtype on Kindergarten Outcomes for Doubly Vulnerable Children.

Variable	Math			Language and literacy			Externalizing behaviors			Prosocial behaviors			Approaches to learning
Variable	b	SE	p	b	SE	p	b	SE	p	b	SE	p	b	SE	p
Referencing public preK
Time effect (t = Wave 4)	10.53	1.34	.00	11.61	1.50	.00	–0.10	0.07	.18	–0.03	0.10	.79	–0.27	0.14	.06
Head Start	0.74	1.58	.64	–0.43	1.11	.70	–0.09	0.18	.61	0.04	0.13	.76	0.23	0.14	.12
Sub CBC	–1.75	1.63	.29	–2.26	1.26	.08	0.24	0.21	.26	–0.07	0.18	.72	0.09	0.18	.64
Unsub CBC	3.44	1.89	.07	1.65	1.53	.28	–0.03	0.30	.91	0.23	0.20	.25	0.33	0.29	.25
Head Start × t	–0.26	1.61	.87	0.11	1.80	.95	0.00	0.14	.99	0.26	0.14	.06	0.33	0.18	.07
Sub CBC × t	0.11	2.00	.96	1.80	3.30	.59	–0.14	0.20	.48	0.32	0.23	.17	0.24	0.25	.33
Unsub CBC × t	–0.98	2.36	.68	0.47	2.74	.87	–0.20	0.23	.37	0.01	0.17	.98	0.30	0.26	.26
Constant	23.02	1.03	.00	2.24	0.72	.00	2.35	0.11	.00	3.36	0.12	.00	3.35	0.11	.00
Referencing subsidized center-based settings
Time effect (t = Wave 4)	10.63	1.49	.00	13.41	3.00	.00	–0.24	0.19	.22	0.29	0.19	.14	–0.03	0.20	.90
Head Start	2.49	1.75	.16	1.83	1.23	.14	–0.33	0.23	.16	0.10	0.14	.46	0.14	0.18	.44
Public preK	1.75	1.63	.29	2.26	1.26	.08	–0.24	0.21	.26	0.07	0.18	.72	–0.09	0.18	.64
Unsub CBC	5.19	2.12	.02	3.92	1.62	.02	–0.27	0.35	.44	0.29	0.20	.15	0.25	0.30	.42
Head Start × t	–0.36	1.77	.84	–1.70	3.19	.60	0.14	0.23	.55	–0.06	0.22	.80	0.09	0.25	.72
Public preK × t	–0.11	2.00	.96	–1.80	3.29	.59	0.14	0.20	.48	–0.32	0.23	.17	–0.24	0.25	.33
Unsub CBC × t	–1.08	2.26	.63	–1.33	3.46	.70	–0.07	0.28	.82	–0.31	0.25	.21	0.05	0.32	.87
Constant	21.27	1.34	.00	17.98	1.01	.00	2.58	0.18	.00	3.30	0.13	.00	3.44	0.16	.00
Referencing unsubsidized center-based settings
Time effect (t = Wave 4)	9.55	1.77	.00	12.08	1.92	.00	–0.30	0.20	.15	–0.02	0.14	.87	0.03	0.23	.91
Head Start	–2.70	1.91	.16	–2.09	1.73	.23	–0.06	0.33	.86	–0.19	0.17	.28	–0.10	0.28	.71
Public preK	–3.44	1.89	.07	–1.65	1.53	.28	0.03	0.30	.91	–0.23	0.20	.25	–0.33	0.29	.25
Sub CBC	–5.19	2.12	.02	–3.92	1.62	.02	0.27	0.35	.44	–0.29	0.20	.15	–0.25	0.30	.42
Head Start × t	0.72	2.05	.73	–0.36	2.09	.86	0.20	0.26	.44	0.25	0.18	.16	0.04	0.28	.89
Public preK × t	0.98	2.36	.68	–0.47	2.74	.87	0.20	0.23	.37	–0.01	0.17	.98	–0.30	0.26	.26
Sub CBC × t	1.08	2.26	.63	1.33	3.46	.70	0.07	0.28	.82	0.31	0.25	.21	–0.05	0.32	.87
Constant	26.46	1.74	.00	21.90	1.37	.00	2.31	0.28	.00	3.59	0.16	.00	3.68	0.26	.00
Sample size (N)^a	850			850			650			650			650

Note. Data are drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort 9-month kindergarten restricted use data file. N ≈ 850. Sample is limited to low-income families at the 2-year interview (Wave 2) with children defined as special needs at Wave 3, with nonmissing outcome data, and who are in center-based ECE arrangements at Wave 3. Models are weighted using jackknife replicate weights WK1C1-90 for academic outcomes and WK45T1-90 for social-emotional outcomes. ECE = early childhood education; t = indicator of kindergarten record (Wave 4) versus preschool record (Wave 3); Sub = subsidized; Unsub = unsubsidized.

Rounded to the nearest 50 per National Center for Education Statistics data security requirements.

Falsification Tests for Parallel Trends

Our “falsification” test challenges the assumption that the outcome trajectories of doubly vulnerable children in different ECE arrangements were not already diverging between a pair of earlier waves. The two waves for which we have comparable measures to test this assumption are Waves 1 and 2, when the Bayley mental and behavior scales were administered. Table 4 presents results of this test first across different ECE settings and next between center-based ECE subtypes. For all comparisons, we find no significant effect of the interaction term; statistically speaking, doubly vulnerable children’s mental and behavioral skills developed in parallel between Waves 1 and 2 across ECE setting and center type groups (Figure 2). In this case, a null finding supports the parallel-trends assumption.

Table 4.

Falsification Tests for Parallel Trends by ECE Setting Type and Center-Based Subtype.

Variable	Bayley mental			Bayley behavior
Variable	b	SE	p	b	SE	p
ECE setting type
Referencing parental care only
Time effect (t = Wave 2)	41.62	1.53	.00	—	—	—
Center based	1.11	1.25	.38	—	—	—
Home based	2.23	1.57	.16	—	—	—
Center Based × t	–2.40	1.84	.23	—	—	—
Home Based × t	–1.45	1.96	.46	—	—	—
Constant	72.65	1.18	.00	—	—	—
Referencing home-based care
Time effect (t = Wave 2)	40.17	1.42	.00	–0.69	0.09	.00
Center based	–1.12	1.39	.42	–0.03	0.12	.82
Parental	–2.23	1.57	.16	—	—	—
Center Based × t	–0.96	1.66	.57	–0.18	0.15	.26
Parental × t	1.45	1.96	.46	—	—	—
Constant	74.88	1.37	.00	3.48	0.08	.00
Sample size (N)^a	1,450			1,150
Center-based ECE subtype
Referencing public preK
Time effect (t = Wave 2)	37.96	1.92	.00	–0.83	0.12	.00
Head Start	1.71	1.46	.25	–0.10	0.15	.51
Sub CBC	–1.61	1.63	.33	–0.35	0.24	.15
Unsub CBC	0.25	1.86	.89	0.07	0.18	.72
Head Start × t	1.20	2.13	.58	0.26	0.20	.19
Sub CBC × t	1.74	2.67	.52	0.35	0.32	.28
Unsub CBC × t	2.49	2.33	.29	–0.13	0.24	.59
Constant	73.34	1.13	.00	3.57	0.13	.00
Referencing subsidized center-based settings
Time effect (t = Wave 2)	39.70	1.94	.00	–0.49	0.27	.07
Head Start	3.32	1.44	.02	0.25	0.21	.25
Public preK	1.61	1.63	.33	0.35	0.24	.15
Unsub CBC	1.86	1.81	.31	0.41	0.23	.08
Head Start × t	–0.54	2.12	.80	–0.09	0.30	.76
Public preK × t	–1.74	2.67	.52	–0.35	0.32	.28
Unsub CBC × t	0.75	2.37	.75	–0.48	0.42	.25
Constant	71.72	1.17	.00	3.23	0.21	.00
Referencing unsubsidized center-based settings
Time effect (t = Wave 2)	40.45	1.31	.00	–0.97	0.22	.00
Head Start	1.46	1.66	.38	–0.16	0.14	.25
Public preK	–0.25	1.86	.89	–0.07	0.18	.72
Sub CBC	–1.86	1.81	.31	–0.41	0.23	.08
Head Start × t	–1.29	1.66	.44	0.39	0.29	.18
Public preK × t	–2.49	2.33	.29	0.13	0.24	.59
Sub CBC × t	–0.75	2.37	.75	0.48	0.42	.25
Constant	73.59	1.29	.00	3.64	0.13	.00
Sample size (n)^a	850			650

Note. Data are drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort 9-month kindergarten restricted use data file. N ≈ 1,450. Sample is limited to low-income families at the 2-year interview (Wave 2) with children defined as special needs at Wave 3 and with nonmissing outcome data. Models are weighted using jackknife replicate weights WK1C1-90 for academic outcomes and WK45T1-90 for social-emotional outcomes. ECE = early childhood education; t = indicator of 2-year record (Wave 2) versus 9-month record (Wave 1); Sub = subsidized; Unsub = unsubsidized.

Rounded to the nearest 50 per NCES data security requirements.

Discussion

This study is the first to examine whether center-based ECE—including each of the major public ECE programs in the United States (Head Start, public preK, and care purchased with child care subsidies)—promotes kindergarten skills among low-income children with or at risk for special needs. As with typically developing low-income children, doubly vulnerable children who attend center-based ECE in the year before kindergarten experienced significant developmental advantages over their peers in home-based ECE and parental care. Specifically, children who attended center-based ECE displayed better language and literacy outcomes in kindergarten compared to their peers in parental care and better prosocial skills than their peers in home-based ECE. There were few differences among center-based ECE types, although Head Start was linked with better approaches to learning and prosocial skills than public school-based preK at marginal levels of significance.

children who attended center-based ECE displayed better language and literacy outcomes in kindergarten compared to their peers in parental care and better prosocial skills than their peers in home-based ECE.

Effects of Center-Based ECE on Language and Literacy Outcomes of Doubly Vulnerable Children

Our finding that center-based ECE is more promotive of kindergarten language and literacy skills than parental care is consistent with theory and prior literature. As discussed earlier, center-based settings may offer more opportunities for language interaction and exchanges with teachers, other staff, and more advanced peers (e.g., Fuller et al., 2004; Gupta et al., 2014; Justice et al., 2014; Odom, 2000). Moreover, the increased availability of print materials in center-based ECE relative to parental care could explain the boost to language-related outcomes (e.g., Dickinson & Sprague, 2001). Finally, for low-income children with special needs, given the strong likelihood that center-based ECE teachers will have pedagogical, if not special education, training, it is possible that these children will receive more challenging tasks that optimize their development in center-based ECE as compared to at home with parents (Guralnick, 1990).

The finding that center-based ECE produced positive effects on doubly vulnerable children’s language and literacy—an effect of approximately 0.27 standard deviations—is also largely consistent with the extant literature. All three prior studies comparing recipients of publicly funded center-based ECE to comparison groups of low-income nonrecipients reported significant positive effects of ECE treatment on language and literacy for subgroups of doubly vulnerable children, particularly on measures of receptive language and vocabulary (Bloom & Weiland, 2015; Phillips & Meloy, 2012; Weiland, 2016). Most comparable to our estimates are those from the nationally representative Head Start Impact Study that report effects of Head Start on children’s receptive language scores at a magnitude of 0.24 standard deviations. Phillips and Meloy (2012) found that Tulsa’s public preK program increased doubly vulnerable children’s early reading outcomes by between 1.1 and 1.2 standard deviations, and Weiland (2016) identified positive effects of Boston’s public preK program on receptive vocabulary of 0.52 standard deviations. These effect sizes are likely to be larger, as the two public preK programs examined (Boston and Tulsa) represent the highest-quality ECE available (Phillips et al., 2009; Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2013) and are thus not representative of what children across the country likely receive.

Also similar to research both in the Head Start Impact Study and Tulsa—but unlike evidence from Boston—we did not detect positive effects of center-based ECE on doubly vulnerable children’s early math skills. One possible reason is that, traditionally, ECE classrooms have underemphasized math relative to language, social-emotional skills, and early reading (Bargagliotti et al., 2009; Rudd et al., 2008). ECE teachers spend substantially less time teaching math, relative to literacy, with estimates ranging from 3% to 17% of the day spent on math activities, compared to 11% to 30% of the day spent on literacy (Farran et al., 2011; Phillips et al., 2009). Further, ECE teachers may receive less training and have lower comfort levels in teaching math (Ginsburg et al., 2008). If teachers avoid teaching math (Ginsburg et al., 2008) or do not teach it well, there is no reason to expect that center-based ECE teachers will offer a math advantage over what parents do at home. Additionally, early math learning, more than language and literacy skills, relies on executive-functioning capacities, such as attention and working memory (Espy et al., 2004; Li-Grining et al., 2010), with which many special needs children have marked impairments (Gathercole et al., 2006; Liebman & Goodman, 1995; Schoemaker et al., 2013). Future research should assess variability in the impacts of ECE setting type on doubly vulnerable children’s math learning by the quality of individualized math instruction embedded in these inclusive settings (e.g., Phillips & Meloy, 2012).

Effects of Center-Based ECE On Social-Emotional Outcomes of Doubly Vulnerable Children

Compared to home-based settings, center-based ECE was powerfully associated with better prosocial behavior on the order of 0.46 standard deviations. Although the processes behind this finding are challenging to decipher, there is evidence to suggest that inclusive center-based ECE programs are beneficial for children with mild disabilities and perhaps especially for the development of prosocial skills (Bailey et al., 1988; Holahan & Costenbader, 2000; Odom et al., 2004). Home-based classrooms, in contrast, may not provide the minimum level of inclusion necessary to influence doubly vulnerable children’s prosocial behaviors (as compared to academic outcomes that one study suggests may be less sensitive to inclusion thresholds; Rhoad-Drogalis & Justice, 2019). In our sample, for example, the home-based arrangements enrolled, on average, approximately 3% children with special needs, as compared to nearly 26% across center-based ECE types (see Table S1 in the online supplement). Of course, inclusion per se does not guarantee that children with special needs and their classmates will receive the kinds of supports that promote inclusive social interaction among peers. In this context, it is notable that the center-based teachers in our sample completed, on average, 2.6 special education courses in college, whereas virtually none of the home-based providers had received such training (Table S1 online). Elucidating the facets of teachers’ preparation and the inclusive classroom practices they implement that support the prosocial development of doubly vulnerable children is an area ripe for future research.

It is notable that the current study found no effects of center-based relative to home-based ECE on doubly vulnerable children’s externalizing behavior, which is good news given that some prior studies of typically developing children find that increased exposure to center-based nonparental care increases children’s externalizing behavior problems (Belsky et al., 2007; Loeb et al., 2007; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2003). We also found no effect of ECE setting on children’s approaches to learning skills. Indeed, children’s approaches to learning were the only set of skills that did not significantly change from the preschool to kindergarten year across ECE setting types (see Table 2). The measure of approaches to learning includes indicators related to features of self-regulation (e.g., focus and attention), which, as noted earlier, are skills that children with special needs struggle to develop (e.g., Gathercole et al., 2006). As is the case for typically developing children, reliance on enhanced programming explicitly focused on promoting executive-functioning skills may be required to enhance doubly vulnerable children’s self-regulation (Raver et al., 2008, 2011; Weiland, 2016).

Disaggregating Effects by Type of Center-Based ECE for Doubly Vulnerable Children

When we compared effects within center-based ECE types, there were no significant advantages for academic outcomes of any center-based ECE setting over another. However, for social-emotional skills, Head Start was marginally more promoting of children’s prosocial behavior and approaches to learning than public preK. What might explain this modest Head Start advantage over preK, specifically? Head Start and public school–based preK are among the highest-quality center-based ECE options available to low-income families in the United States (Hillemeier, Morgan, et al., 2013; Johnson et al., 2012; Johnson, Martin, et al., 2019). But of the two, Head Start programs have a much longer history of attending to the social-emotional development of low-income children and of enrolling children with special needs than does the current generation of school-based preK programs (Zigler & Styfco, 2010). Determining whether this distinctive legacy of Head Start’s historical focus on the “whole child” and on inclusion manifests today in stronger support for the social and regulatory development of children with special needs, relative to preK settings, requires observational assessments of pertinent classroom processes not available in the ECLS-B.

Head Start was marginally more promoting of children’s prosocial behavior and approaches to learning than public preK.

It is perhaps not surprising that subsidized and unsubsidized centers did not emerge as drivers of doubly vulnerable children’s gains from the preschool to the kindergarten year; previous studies examining the quality and features of ECE offered by community-based and subsidized settings typically find Head Start and public preK to offer more of the features and activities known to positively promote development (Bassok et al., 2016; Coley et al., 2016; Johnson et al., 2012). Yet neither did we find negative effects of subsidized centers relative to other center-based ECE types. This runs counter to results using this same data set, in which subsidies had negative effects on preacademic outcomes (Sullivan et al., 2019). However, Sullivan and colleagues (2019) included both center- and home-based settings in the definition of subsidized ECE, which may have produced downwardly biased associations between subsidized ECE and children’s kindergarten outcomes relative to our exclusive focus on subsidized centers.

Limitations

First and foremost, we are not able to draw strictly causal conclusions. The estimates presented are quasiexperimental and are likely to exhibit some bias relative to an experimental design. Despite the implementation of a rigorous DiD estimation strategy, coupled with evidence that the children in different ECE types did not exhibit preexisting differences in skill trajectories, we cannot eliminate the possibility that other, unobserved time-varying factors do not at least partially account for the reported associations between ECE settings and children’s kindergarten skills. We also note that our falsification tests rely on proxy measures of children’s earlier skills: the Bayley scales of cognition and behavior administered at Waves 1 and 2 are developmentally appropriate for infants and toddlers but would not be appropriate for preschoolers and kindergarteners, which is why they were not repeated at later waves; by the same token, the outcome measures at Waves 3 and 4 were appropriate for children approaching kindergarten but would not have been for younger children. Although they are correlated (Figure 1) we recognize the significant limitation posed by not having identical outcome measures across all waves to assess parallel trends over the period directly preceding the preschool year.

Second, our measure of special-needs status, although intentionally broad, is imperfect. To identify children with or at risk for special needs, we drew not only on multiple dimensions that capture the way prior studies using the ECLS-B have identified special needs (Hillemeier, Morgan, et al., 2013; Morgan et al., 2009, 2012; Sullivan et al., 2019) but also on criteria used to determine eligibility for Part C and Part B of IDEA (Rosenberg et al., 2008, 2013) and on risk status associated with low birth weight and gestational age commonly used in the public health and early intervention communities (e.g., Chyi et al., 2008; Hack et al., 2005; MacKay et al., 2010). Because we include children “at risk for” and those diagnosed with special needs at age 2, we likely overidentify children who would legally qualify for special education services at ages 4 and beyond. Nonetheless, because preschoolers are more likely to be formally diagnosed as having special needs in certain ECE settings than others (e.g., Head Start; Shapiro & Weiland, 2019), we focused on at-risk-for and diagnosed special needs at age 2 to reduce the likelihood that age 4 ECE setting predicts special needs status or vice versa.

Third, although the ECLS-B is the only nationally representative data set suitable for the present analyses, data were collected more than a decade ago. Although much about public ECE programs has remained the same from 2005–2006 to the present, there is no doubt that much has also changed (Phillips et al., 2018). Since the early 2000s, for example, public preK programs have expanded (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2019). In 2014, the parent legislation that funds the child care subsidy program was reauthorized, elevating the program’s quality standards. Moreover, because ECE providers and center directors were asked to report only one public funding stream, we are unable to identify mixed delivery models of ECE, which have increasingly become the norm (Phillips et al., 2018). As such, these results may not fully capture the contemporary realities of center-based ECE serving doubly vulnerable children today.

Conclusion and Implications

Despite its limitations, the current study finds that inclusive, center-based ECE settings promote doubly vulnerable children’s language and literacy skills and prosocial behaviors at kindergarten entry. We add to the available evidence (Bloom & Weiland, 2015; Phillips & Melloy, 2012; Weiland, 2016) findings from a nationally representative sample documenting, for the first time, relationships among the full universe of ECE arrangements that serve doubly vulnerable children in the United States. Our finding, which replicates prior evidence of benefits for school readiness from exposure to publicly funded center-based ECE for doubly vulnerable children, further affirms the importance of allocating scarce public resources to such center-based arrangements as a promising strategy for narrowing achievement gaps at kindergarten entry for this population. Accompanying public education efforts aimed at their families are also warranted, as are incentives and resources for center-based providers to enroll doubly vulnerable children (Henly & Adams, 2018) and provide them with the early care and education that will ensure them a strong start on the path into and through formal schooling.

Supplemental Material

ECE_Impacts_on_SN_MANUSCRIPT_SUPP_R3 – Supplemental material for The Effects of Early Care and Education Settings on the Kindergarten Outcomes of Doubly Vulnerable Children

Supplemental material, ECE_Impacts_on_SN_MANUSCRIPT_SUPP_R3 for The Effects of Early Care and Education Settings on the Kindergarten Outcomes of Doubly Vulnerable Children by Owen N. Schochet, Anna D. Johnson and Deborah A. Phillips in Exceptional Children

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

This study was supported by Georgetown University’s Summer Faculty Fellowship program for research support. We are grateful for feedback received on earlier versions of this manuscript from Drs. Rebecca Ryan, Paul Morgan, Christina Weiland, Elizabeth Groginsky, and Serene Habayeb and conference participants at the Association for Public Policy and Management 2018 Fall Research Conference. All errors are the responsibility of the authors.

ORCID iD

Owen N. Schochet

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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