Quality preschool education can benefit middle-class children as well as disadvantaged
children; typically developing children as well as children with special needs; and dual
language learners as well as native speakers. Although early research focused only on
programs for low-income children, more recent research focusing on universal preschool
programs provides the opportunity to ask if preschool can benefit children from middleincome
as well as low-income families. The evidence is clear that middle-class children can
benefit substantially, and that benefits outweigh costs for children from middle-income as
well as those from low-income families. However, children from low-income backgrounds
benefit more. Children with special needs who attended Tulsa’s preschool program showed
comparable improvements in reading and pre-writing skills as typically developing children.
Further, at the end of first grade, children with special needs who had attended Head Start
as 3-year-olds showed stronger gains in math and social-emotional development than
children with special needs who had not attended Head Start. Studies of both Head Start
and public preschool programs suggest that dual language learners benefit as much as, and
in some cases more than, their native speaker counterparts.