Three-county Head Start trial links preschool REDI to better young-adult well-being

Young adults who received supplemental preschool lessons in social, emotional, problem-solving and language skills reported better well-being nearly two decades later than peers who received standard Head Start instruction, according to a follow-up analysis of a randomized trial. The study surveyed 356 participants from 44 Head Start programs across three Pennsylvania counties when participants were 21 or 22 years old. Those assigned to the Research Based, Developmentally Informed program, known as REDI, reported fewer depressive symptoms, less loneliness and fewer conduct problems, along with greater empathy, emotional support, life satisfaction and numbers of healthy days. The findings are bounded to the children and communities included in the original trial and to the 11 well-being, social-adjustment and quality-of-life indicators assessed in the follow-up.

All 356 participants had attended Head Start, a federal preschool program created in the 1960s for children from low-income families. Head Start provides educational support intended to help children enter elementary school with skills such as listening and taking turns. The analysis compared 192 students who had been assigned to classrooms implementing REDI with 164 students assigned to standard Head Start classrooms. REDI was developed at Penn State in the early 2000s and was added to Head Start rather than replacing the core program. “Participation in REDI was still associated with a meaningfully better life when they reached adulthood,” said Karen Bierman, lead author of the study and primary designer of REDI.

Preschool students in REDI classrooms received two lessons per week built around four areas of skill. Friendship lessons included sharing and taking turns. Emotional-understanding lessons taught children to recognize feelings and become aware of how their behavior can affect other people. Problem-solving lessons included strategies for remaining calm when upset, while language lessons developed vocabulary and reading so children had words available for using emotional and social skills. Teachers were trained to deliver these lessons and to apply the same skills during conflicts that arose naturally in the classroom, such as when two children wanted the same toy or one child did not want to sit beside another.

When the young adults were surveyed, they answered questions covering 11 aspects of well-being, social adjustment and quality of life. REDI participants reported lower levels of depressive symptoms, loneliness and conduct problems, with conduct problems serving as a measure of antisocial behavior. They also reported higher levels of empathy, emotional support, healthy days and life satisfaction than their peers in regular Head Start classrooms. No differences were detected on the other four attributes: hyperactivity, symptoms of emotional problems, sociability, and sense of security and belonging. Bierman said the program affected seven of the 11 factors measured and that the differences were large enough to matter in the participants’ lives.

The difference involving healthy days was described by the researchers in terms that extend beyond a single month. REDI participants reported almost two additional healthy days per month on average compared with peers who did not participate in the program. Damon Jones, a research professor at Penn State’s Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and a co-author, said that this average difference could amount to more than 20 extra healthy days each year and that the benefit may continue for years. The follow-up therefore found measurable advantages across several self-reported dimensions of adult life, but it did not detect a difference in every outcome examined, and the reported healthy-day result is an average rather than a uniform individual gain.

The current findings extend earlier observations from the REDI project. Bierman and colleagues previously reported that children who participated in REDI displayed improved behavior and peer relationships through elementary and high school compared with students who did not participate. The young-adult follow-up assessed whether those earlier developmental differences were accompanied by differences in emotional health, relationships and quality of life at ages 21 and 22. “This study adds to the resoundingly clear body of literature that supporting children early in their lives can reverberate for decades,” Bierman said. She added that the study demonstrates the importance of social and emotional skills in preparing children to succeed in life.

The research had an observational follow-up component: it asked former trial participants to report on their own well-being and social adjustment as young adults. The original intervention was delivered within a randomized controlled trial, while the reported outcomes came from survey responses approximately 18 years later. The sample included former students of 44 Head Start programs in three Pennsylvania counties, and the analysis included 192 REDI participants and 164 peers from regular Head Start classrooms. As a result, the evidence concerns a specific preschool intervention, population and geographic setting. The results do not by themselves establish that the same combination of effects would occur in every Head Start location or among children outside the trial.

The analysis also examined difficult experiences reported over the 18 years of the REDI study, including separation from parents and family instability. Whether children participated in REDI or not, those who faced a greater number of difficult experiences during childhood had poorer well-being as adults, according to Janet Welsh, a research professor at Penn State’s Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and a co-author. The REDI advantage across several adult outcomes therefore coexisted with a persistent negative association between childhood adversity and adult well-being. The program’s favorable results on seven measures did not mean that it eliminated the consequences of hardship, and the study did not find group differences in the other four measured attributes.

For Welsh, the results point to the need both to protect children from harmful experiences and to help them build skills for handling experiences they encounter. “We need to do everything we can to protect children from harm while also helping them build skills to handle whatever they experience in life,” she said. She noted that providing such support has a cost but described it as an investment in children’s futures. The study’s practical message is narrowly focused: adding structured social-emotional and language instruction to Head Start classrooms was associated with a better young-adult profile for former REDI students across three Pennsylvania counties, while childhood adversity remained linked to poorer adult outcomes regardless of REDI participation.

Subject of Research: Long-term outcomes of a randomized preschool social-emotional learning trial in Head Start

Article Title: Building social and emotional skills in preschool improved life for young adults

Article References: Building social and emotional skills in preschool improved life for young adults. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: REDI program, Head Start, preschool intervention, randomized controlled trial, social-emotional learning, young-adult well-being, child development, depressive symptoms, loneliness, empathy, life satisfaction, childhood adversity