Placing the First-Year Findings of the National Head Start Impact Study in Context

This report provides a summary of the first-year findings of the Head Start Impact Study. Results are discussed in the context of other research on children’s development. Data were collected after only nine months of Head Start. The positive effects of nine months of Head Start were seen in multiple aspects of child development (cognitive, social, emotional, and health) as well as parenting practices. Head Start narrowed the gap in specific aspects of pre-reading ability between children in poverty and U.S. children as a whole by 45 percent. The positive effects of Head Start on children are comparable to or larger than those of other large-scale social programs.