Program Utilization Pattern during Early Childhood and Kindergarten Readiness

Background/Purpose:

Early childhood intervention programs have been implemented for young children, particularly those from low-income families, to promote healthy development. Previous studies have shown that early childhood intervention programs promote young children’s healthy development, including cognitive, behavioral, and school readiness. However, little is known how these intervention programs are utilized, and whether patterns of these intervention programs are associated with kindergarten readiness. Thus, this study aimed to 1) identify underlying heterogeneous patterns of early childhood intervention programs and 2) investigate the association between the patterns of intervention programs and kindergarten readiness.

Method:

Birth cohorts from 2012-2014 in Cuyahoga county were pulled from the longitudinal administrative data system (Child Hood Integrated Longitudinal Data: CHILD), and then matched to six IIC program records (i.e., PAT: Parents as Teachers, SPARK: Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids, NBHV: Newborn Homevisit, UPK: Universal Pre-Kindergarten, MomsFirst, ECMH:Early Childhood Mental Health Services). Our final sample (N = 1,461) consisted of children born between 2012 and 2014 in Cuyahoga County who were matched to six program records and had data on Kindergarten Readiness Assessment-Literacy (KRA-L), as well as engaged in at least two of the six programs. First, Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was employed to identify unobserved classes of IIC program usage using the 6 program indicators. Second, we performed a series of bivariate Chi-square test to understand the sociodemographic characteristics and the KRA-L on-track rate by classes.

Results:

Taken all together, the 7-class solution was decided as the optimal solution based on BIC values decrease, interpretability, and relationship to a distal outcome. 7 classes included the following: “Very early intervention & high-quality pre-k program” (19%), “Parenting program & high-quality pre-k program” (11%), “Parenting program with some early interventions” (18%), – “Kindergarten readiness purposed program” (12%), “Only very early interventions” (11%), “Early intervention & high-quality pre-k program” (19%), and “Mental health intervention” (11%).

The percentage of children who were on-track was significantly higher for “Kindergarten readiness purposed program (class 4)” (57.08%) than for those who were in “Parenting program with some early interventions (class 3)” (40.46%), “Only very early interventions (class 5)” (36.62%), and “Mental health intervention (class 7)” (41.08%). Overall, “Only very early interventions (class 5)” had the lowest rate of KRA-L on-track rate (36.62%) and highest level of elevated lead exposure, Medicaid and food-stamp receipt.

Conclusions/Implication:

The study found that children in class 4, who participated in a kindergarten-readiness program, had the highest rate of being on-track in their KRL-L, while class 5, who only received MomsFirst and NBHV during very early childhood, had the lowest on-track rate. Furthermore, children who did not receive services beyond early childhood had the highest lead exposure levels, which maybe an additional barrier for them to achieve educational achievement. To promote positive outcome, it is important to ensure a continuum of services throughout early childhood. Community providers should focus on providing services in a continuum, particularly to families who have received early services, by reducing barriers to program receipt and enhancing engagement with families.