SUBSIDY UTILIZATION AND IMPACT ON EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION OF LOW-INCOME CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

University Of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

The principal objective of the project is to describe the nature and impact of child care subsidy use by low-income families eligible for subsidies who have children with special needs. To achieve this objective, the following three subordinate objectives are: (1) To describe patterns and predictors of subsidy use among children with disabilities or delays relative to typically developing children within the population of subsidy-eligible low-income families; (2) To identify differences in care types and quality and predictors thereof between children with special needs and typically-developing children from low-income families who do and do not receive subsidies; (3) To ascertain the extent to which subsidy receipt, care type, and care quality are related to school readiness of children with special needs who come from subsidy-eligible families. A secondary analysis of nationally representative data drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort using a variety of descriptive and multivariate statistics will be conducted. This project addresses several notable gaps in the field. First, it provides much needed information on subsidy use by families of children with special needs, a topic that has received little attention in research. Second, this project will be the first to provide nationally representative estimates of subsidized care for children with special needs, as well as the predictors of subsidy receipt for this subpopulation. Third, this will be the first project to compare the type and quality of care received by children with special needs who do and do not receive subsidies. Fourth, this the first study of this kind to consider the relations of subsidized care to early educational outcomes for children with special needs. Finally, this study will identify any differences in subsidy receipt, predictors, and outcomes of subsidized care for children with and without special needs.