Why did urban BEEPers surpass their peers in educational achievement and income as well as in physical and mental health? The executive skills participants had acquired in their earliest years of schooling, such as planning, organizing and following through, were applicable to non-school tasks and gave these young adults distinct advantages when they became responsible for their own lives, researchers concluded. Along with earlier longitudinal studies, these results indicate that participants in high-quality intervention programs reap long-term benefits that translate into more rewarding lives for themselves and their families as well as savings for taxpayers in the areas of health, education and public assistance. The study also demonstrates that well designed, intensive early education bridges the gap between urban and suburban populations, not only in such expected areas as education and employment potential, but also in personal health management.18 While there’s no real way to test why inclusion yields good results, “many of the advantages of BEEP have to do with the mix,” says Hauser-Cram; “it blunts differences and provides good models.”

“The results in health efficacy, especially for participants in urban centers, was surprising,” Hauser-Cram says, “since no other study hypothesized this outcome. Clearly, there were advantages to the families, which helped children all the way through. Over time, improved executive function turns into taking charge of their own health care, getting more education and managing life’s ups and downs.” Families were strengthened by their participation in BEEP, Hauser-Cram found when she conducted a blind study of family/teacher interaction for her doctoral dissertation. Benefits were obvious by second grade, and teachers reported that BEEP parents initiated much more frequent interaction, asking ”what can I do for my child?” and demonstrating their desire to be partners and advocates. For these families, Brookline pubic schools presented an open door.

Parents who participated in BEEP reported overwhelmingly (97%) that they would do it over again, and mothers said they would recommend such a program to their children. More than two-thirds felt the program had an enduring effect on them, especially on their parenting skills, and more than half believed BEEP had made a lasting difference for their child, most notably in the areas of learning and motivation. Over 70% of parents could not think of any negative aspect of the program; the one negative comment mentioned by several people was that services should have continued beyond kindergarten. Mothers valued the home visits more than any other part of the program, urban parents appreciated the learning opportunities provided to their children and suburban parents considered the medical and developmental exams to be most important.

Smarter Kids, Healthier Adults

What do the lives of BEEP young adults teach us? According to the researchers, program participants, especially those living in urban communities, are significantly better off than their peers in terms of education and income, and appear to be better caretakers of their own physical and mental health. These findings are consistent with kindergarten and second-grade evaluations of BEEP, where children had more positive peer relationships and stronger skills than other students, and they point to an important, understudied, potential result of comprehensive, family-focused, early education programs. In other words, it’s important to look beyond the temporary IQ gains and take into consideration the improved life skills that have lasting impact.

BEEP could be replicated today, in Hauser-Cram’s opinion, but it would not be inexpensive. “With commitment on the part of school systems, we could well be moving toward public preschools as a way of serving all children. It is possible.” She sees a trend emerging for centers providing a range of services to move further into early childhood. In fact, a number of full-service, or integrated service, schools, already exist and evaluations of them are just now beginning to come out. These community-based institutions offer legal, health, psychological and social services and ESL for parents, all in the school building, often after hours. “It’s one-stop shopping and it works much better than a piecemeal approach,” says Hauser-Cram. Cross-discipline training is essential for these new, integrated models, she cautions, and professionals must take steps to prevent hierarchies that elevate one discipline, such as medicine, above all others because, “we all have something to learn from each other.”

BEEP would also be relevant today. Its inclusive approach predated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by decades and the mix of participants, including children with autism, developmental delays and mental retardation, might be similar to that found in an early childhood program in 2006. There is also a growing interest in programs like BEEP, because they stress parent involvement and emphasize self-regulation and executive functioning skills. However, “these are different times,” Hauser-Cram stresses, “and future projects must take into account social issues such as racism, neighborhood safety, economic disparity and the excessive pressure on today’s children.” She is concerned that the present emphasis on measurable academic achievement may mean that social interactions are neglected. In her view, “there is a critical need to deal with behavior problems and to provide mental health services for young children—and for parents who may need help helping children.”Although the BEEP follow-up study’s small sample size, particularly for urban youths (a total of 50 subjects) was a real limitation, the long-term benefits it reveals still prove that the best early intervention programs pay off by lessening the need for costly remediation later, among other benefits, and that children who have been part of such a program are more likely than their peers to make a positive contribution to the community. While young adults are generally healthy, outcomes such as early death, HIV and teen pregnancy, which disproportionately affect youths in low-income neighborhoods, might be mitigated by high-quality preschool programs, giving urban and suburban children similar chances of success. There are also important implications here for continuous involvement by pediatricians and parents, the authors conclude. Given the vital importance of healthy behaviors and adaptive mental health during the young adult years, these findings add a significant dimension to what is already known about the benefits of early education.