The Education of Low-Birth-Weight Children

The Education of Low-Birth-Weight Children in our book starts on page 143 and finishes on 149. I was really intrigued by the section because currently my career goals are directed towards low SES Latino children. I was not aware about the other intervention programs specifically aimed at children born with low birth-weight so it was interesting to read about. This post, however, will be directed primarily to pages 148-149 because it talks about Head Start, a topic that I am knowledgable in because I currently volunteer at East Harlem Bilingual Head Start. The book says on page 148 "All Head Start programs are required to provide developmentally appropriate educational experiences, health screenings and referrals, nutrition education and hot meals, and parental involvement. However, beyond these general guidelines, programs are encouraged to adapt to local needs." Yes, this is true but in addition to what Head Start programs are required to provide, what was not mentioned is that students work with social workers, occupational therapists (if needed), and see therapists every week. If a teacher see's that a child is lacking in cognitive, social, or psychological development, s/he is assigned extra time with a proper therapist. These additional factors not mentioned in the text play crucial roles within child development because they are extra measures taken to assure a child is able to be at par with his/her counterparts. Next, on page 149 the book states, "Evidence of the effectiveness of Head Start is somewhat mixed. While Head Start appears to provide immediate and substantial gains in terms of IQ scores and cognitive ability, most studies show that these gains are quickly lost once children leave the program." This is true. After reading extensive literature on Head Start and it's effectiveness, there have indeed been mixed evidence of its long-term effectiveness. On the other hand, while Head Start prepares its students for higher learning, I don't think that child academic performance, say in High School, should be directly linked to the effectiveness of Head Start. There are many factors that contribute to academic failure, for lack of better words. For example, divorce, family death, sickness, home environment (meaning bad neighborhoods, or if the child is living in shared housing), income, obesity, drugs, etc. One crucial factor that may also have an effect on children after Head Start is a language barrier. According to a study in 2002, researchers found that the majority of school teachers in the United States rated themselves to be unprepared when trying to meet the needs of children with diverse cultural backgrounds, especially if they were not proficient in speaking English (Zambrana, R. E., & Zoppi, I. M. (2002). Latina students: Translating cultural wealth into social capital to improve academic success. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 11(1/2), 33-53.). I think the claim "While Head Start appears to provide immediate and substantial gains in terms of IQ scores and cognitive ability, most studies show that these gains are quickly lost once children leave the program." in my opinion, should not be made with regards to the effectiveness of Head Start, rather with the previous mentioned factors that contribute to a child not having low academic achievement (if that made sense?). I think if one is trying to measure the long term effectiveness Head Start has on the cognitive development of at-risk children, there needs to be many, many factors taken into account. These factors, assuming how many or the degree in which they have an effect on a child, could inevitably "drowned out" any progress made by Head Start.