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Programs Varied in Approach

• The 115 early childhood programs included in the study use a range of approaches, including early care and education, home visiting, parent education, and transfers.

Evaluations Measured Short- and Longer-Term Outcomes in Multiple Domains

• The domains included behavior and emotion; cognitive achievement; child health; developmental delay; child welfare; crime; educational attainment; and employment and earnings, family formation, and uses of social services in adulthood.

Early Childhood Programs Can Improve an Array of Early and Later Outcomes

• Most included programs — 102 of 115 — have demonstrable impacts on at least one child outcome. Almost one in three measured outcomes were improved.

Sizes of Improvements in Outcomes Vary

• Other meta-analyses of early intervention programs found effect sizes on child outcomes in the range of 0.1 to 0.4 for the cognitive achievement or the behavior and emotion domains, and the authors estimated effect sizes for three health outcomes ranging from 0 to 0.15.

Resources Required for Early Childhood Programs Vary Widely

• Available cost estimates for 25 of the 115 programs range from about $150 per family to nearly $48,800 per family, reflecting, in part, differences in program intensity and duration of program services.

Most Programs with Benefit–Cost Analyses Show Positive Returns

• Estimated benefit–cost ratios for the 19 programs with formal benefit–cost analyses are typically in the range of $2 to $4 for every dollar invested, when viewed from the societal perspective.
• Estimates of economic return come with considerable uncertainty given that program impacts must be estimated, some outcomes cannot be expressed in monetary terms, and later benefits are not observed without longer-term follow-up.