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Provided by Deborah L. Myerson:
Many studies over the years have consistently demonstrated that early intervention efforts that start at birth provide vulnerable children with long-term benefits and is cost-effective, reducing the need for special education and services later on.
- “Investments in high-quality Early Childhood Development programs consistently generate benefit-cost ratios exceeding 3 to 1—or more than a three dollar return for every dollar invested … Assessments of well-designed and well-executed ECD programs have established that participating children are more successful in school and in life after school than children who are not enrolled in high quality programs.” (Lynch, 2004)
- Researchers studying an early childhood intervention program in North Carolina found that the benefits outweighed the costs by a factor of four dollars for every dollar spent. (Masse and Barnett, 2002)
- “As they grow up, children who attend high-quality early childhood programs show a reduced need for special education…based on these outcomes, leading economists have concluded that investments in young children yield the highest cost-effective returns and are the best strategy for improving children’s odds for success in school and in life.” (Building the Foundation for Bright Futures, 2005)
- “Dollars invested in Early Childhood Development yield extraordinary public returns. From birth until about 5 years old a child undergoes tremendous growth and change. If this period of life includes support for growth in cognition, language, motor skills, adaptive skills and social-emotional functioning, the child is more likely to succeed in school and later contribute to society. A well-managed and well-funded early childhood development program, or ECDP, provides such support. Current ECDPs include home visits as well as center-based programs to supplement and enhance the ability of parents to provide a solid foundation for their children.” (Rolnick and Grunewald, 2003)
- In the absence of formal intervention, there is a general decline in performance on developmental measures for children with a variety of cognitive disabilities, such as Down syndrome, across the first five years of life (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).
- Building the Foundation for Bright Futures: Final Report of the National Governor’s Association Task Force on School Readiness. (2005) National Governor’s Association [Online at www.nga.org]
Rolnick, Art and Rob Grunewald. (2003) Early Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public Return. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis [Online at http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/fedgaz/03-03/earlychild.cfm]
Lynch, Robert G. (2004) Exceptional Returns: Economic, Fiscal, And Social Benefits Of Investment In Early Childhood Development. Economic Policy Institute [Online at [http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_exceptional_returns]
Masse, Leonard N. and W. Steven Barnett. (2002)[A Benefit Cost Analysis of the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention National Institute for Early Education Research. New Brunswick, New Jersey Online at http://nieer.org/resources/research/AbecedarianStudy.pdf]
Oser, C. and Cohen, J. (2003). Improving early intervention: using what we know about infants and toddlers with disabilities to reauthorize Part C of IDEA. Washington, DC: ZERO TO THREE Policy Center.
Shonkoff, J., and Phillips, D. (Eds.) (2000) From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine Washington, DC: National Academy Press.. [Online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309069882/html/]