High-quality early-childhood education boosts more than just early academic skills for young children鈥攊t may also help protect those children from depression, according to new research.
As part of the long-running study on the , an intervention program for poor children in North Carolina, researchers have found that children in the program showed fewer symptoms of depression than those who were randomly assigned to a control group.
The study, appears in the May/June issue of the journal .
鈥淭he early intervention, which was largely child-centered, does not appear to have changed home environments,鈥� said Frances A. Campbell, an author of the paper and a senior scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 鈥淩ather, it buffered, or protected, the treated children from the adverse effects鈥� of negative home environments.
For background, previous stories, and Web links, read Prekindergarten.
