Los Angeles: Exploring Children's Early Learning Settings (LA ExCELS)

Project Manager

Allison Fuligni

Timeline

2003-2008

Research Questions
  1. Given the variety of early education settings for low-income children in Los Angeles County, how do instructional approaches vary within and across these settings?
  2. Across each of the early education settings examined, are instructional practices driven by philosophy or curriculum, and how does the approach impact the type of instruction that children experience?
  3. Are there links between the type of setting and/or instructional approaches used and the kinds of caregiver-child relationships that are formed?
  4. Are there links between the intensity of children’s participation (i.e., number of hours per week/months per year) and the quality of caregiver-child relationships?
  5. Which of these factors—setting, instructional practices, caregiver–child relationships, and/or intensity of participation—have the strongest implications for children’s developmental outcomes?
  6. What are the costs associated with variation in instructional approaches and other program features, and how do program costs relate to impacts on children’s developmental outcomes?  
Project Staff

Nora Obregon
Martha Real y Vasquez
Asha Spivak
Promjawan Udommana
Jennifer Vu

Project Support

National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH/NICHD)
Administration for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Education















Project Summary

This longitudinal study documents the experiences of 276 3- to 5-year-old children from low-income families in Los Angeles County who attended three types of early childhood care and education settings, or did not attend preschool before kindergarten. The study assesses the impacts of these interventions on children's early learning in cognitive, language, and social-emotional domains.  The study examines instructional practices and philosophies, emotional climate, global quality, and caregiver-child relationships in these settings for children who are at risk for school difficulties due to low-income and/or English-language-learner status.  The purpose of the study is to identify specific instructional practices and approaches that have the potential to meaningfully enhance children's development prior to school entry, setting the stage for a successful transition into kindergarten, and reducing the likelihood that these at-risk children will be under-prepared for formal schooling.

The three types of education settings are public center-based programs (Head Start and public preschool), private non-profit preschools, and family child care programs, all selected because of their focus on serving low-income families, and their focus on improving children's cognitive and social development.  Individual children in these three settings, and in a comparison group sampled from waitlists for these services, have been observed in their early education settings and assessed individually to track their development over time in cognitive, language, and social-emotional domains. Analyses compare development over time for children in intervention and comparison groups, as well as assessing the specific impacts of different instructional practices and intervention features within and across the different early education settings.