title: Can Intensive Early Childhood Intervention Programs Eliminate Income-Based Cognitive and Achievement Gaps?
abstract: How much of the income-based gaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low-birth-weight children from both higher- and low-income families between ages one and three, shows much larger impacts among low-than higher-income children. Projecting IHDP impacts to the U.S. population's IQ and achievement trajectories suggests that such a program offered to low-income children would essentially eliminate the income-based gap at age three and between a third and three-quarters of the age five and age eight gaps.
authors.affiliation: Distinguished Professor at the School of Education at University of California, Irvine.
authors.forename: Greg J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Duncan
authors.affiliation: Assistant professor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.
authors.forename: Aaron J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Sojourner