The benefits of active music participation and training for cognitive development have been evidenced in multiple studies, with this link leveraged in music therapy approaches with clinical populations. Although music, rhythm, and movement activities are widely integrated into children's play and early education, few studies have systematically…

There is a growing recognition of the importance of pre-literacy skills among pre-school children. Evidence that children from relatively deprived backgrounds face poorer outcomes in speech and language development and educational achievement has led to an assertive attempt to lessen social inequalities at the earliest opportunity. The UK…

The article highlights literature on parent-infant programing, with particular emphasis on the role of parents, a direct and positive relationship between the gains achieved by very young hearing impaired children, and the extent to which their parents were taught to participate in their early education. (Author/MC)

Head Start, the nation's largest early childhood intervention, has enjoyed public and political support. The program has also been haunted by persistent questions about its role in communities, its sustainable impacts, and its quality. This book discusses the past, present, and future of Head Start in the hope of creating better partnerships…

A total of 160 five-year-old children from Head Start-eligible families were assigned to two treatments during a 6-month Head Start program. The experimental group received the Environmental Academics Program for one to one and a half hours per school day, and the ongoing Head Start program for the balance of the day. The control group received…

The New Nursery School (NNS) program was set up to help 3- and 4-year-old, Spanish-surnamed, environmentally deprived children. The objectives set were (1) to improve self-image, (2) to increase perceptual acuity, (3) to improve language ability, and (4) to improve problem-solving and concept-formation skills. The school is organized as an…

This longitudinal study evaluated the effects of a preschool project designed to serve children between 3 and 5 years of age in a disadvantaged inner-city area in Dublin, Ireland. The preschool, established in 1969, emphasized the development of children's cognitive skills and established structures to increase parents' involvement in their…

This research review focuses on the effects of early intervention on the preschool children of low-income families, examining studies of intervention programs begun in the 1960s through the present. It then relates this analysis to the new Georgia Prekindergarten Program. The interventions reviewed are grouped into four hierarchical categories…

This final report describes the fourth year of the New Nursery School Program (NNS) set up for environmentally deprived, Spanish-surnamed 3- and 4-year-old children. The school was organized as an autotelic environment which the children (15 in each of two sessions) attended for 3 hours a day. Upon entering, children were pretested on the Wechsler…

Even Start is a national program of early childhood and adult education to improve family literacy. This document is a series of four appendices which accompany the National Evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program, a 4-year effort to assess projects, participants, and effects of Even Start. Appendix A provides in-depth description of…

The Even Start program was implemented to improve the educational opportunities of U.S. children and adults by integrating community early childhood education and adult education for parents into a unified family literacy initiative. This document is the final project report of the National Evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program, a…

The Even Start program was authorized by Congress in 1988 to provide early childhood, adult, and parenting education to participating families in a family literacy initiative. This document provides an executive summary of the National Evaluation of Even Start, which assessed services, participants and effectiveness. The summary highlights topics…

Even Start is a family-centered national literacy program whose goal is to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy by expanding the educational opportunities available to low-income families with limited educational experiences. To reach this goal, all Even Start projects provide services in each of three core areas: adult education, parenting…