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Early Childhood

Mathematica evaluates early childhood policies and programs, providing the evidence to support provision of high quality services for children from birth to age five. From systematic reviews of the effectiveness of home visiting programs to behavioral interventions that encourage parents to read with their children every day, we partner with federal, state, and local decision makers to help shape the key questions and extract actionable evidence to help early childhood leaders make progress.

Over more than 50 years, Mathematica has partnered with a wide range of funders providing early care and education to families and communities. Our expertise ranges from improving the credentials of infant–toddler caregivers through one-on-one mentoring to designing adaptive developmental assessments for preschoolers. We help those funding and implementing early care programs to augment and reimagine the ways they gather and use data to make the most of available funding streams. We draw from a toolbox ranging from rapid-learning approaches to complex random assignment evaluations. Regardless of approach, we bring rigor and objectivity to deciding what to do next.

Our Featured Work

Early Care and Education Leadership Study (ExCELS)

The Early Care and Education Leadership Study seeks to fill definitional and measurement gaps in order to help the early childhood field understand how effective leaders can improve quality experiences for children in early care and education settings.

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Child Maltreatment Incidence Data Linkages (CMI Data Linkages)

The Child Maltreatment Incidence Data Linkages project examines the feasibility of using linked administrative data to understand child maltreatment incidence and related risk and protective factors.

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