| This study assessed the effects of offering a public preschool inclusion program in a middle-class district on typically developing students' social and cognitive growth, through a randomized trial experimental design. An integrated public preschool program, allowing children with disabilities to attend preschool with typically developing peers, uses a lottery to determine which typically developing children will enter the program. Children were randomly assigned to either the treatment condition (offered a place) or comparison group (from the program waiting list). Seventy-three children formed the experimental group. Seventy-six children from the wait list formed the control group. Classroom quality in the district was assessed using ECERS-R, SELA, PCMI, classroom observation, surveys, and interviews with teachers and administrators. Although teachers tended to be well educated, quality scores were relatively low across the district, and similar in public and private programs. Children were pre-tested in August of 2003 and post-tested in April of 2004 to determine cognitive and social development, using: Social Skills Rating System, Get Ready to Read!, 3 subscales of the Woodcock-Johnson-3 rd Edition, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III . The treatment group had higher post-test scores on the Letter-Word Identification subscale of the WJ-III. No differences were found in social outcomes between the groups. |
