Quality prekindergarten programs can boost children’s school skills whether the kids come from poor or well-off homes, a new study shows.

While most previous studies had focused only on kids from underprivileged backgrounds, in the new study Harvard researchers found that regardless of family income children who got a year of quality prekindergarten did better in reading and math than kids who spent the year in daycare, with relatives, or in some other kind of preschool, according to the report which was published in Child Development. 

As a further benefit, the kids who spent a year in preschool developed better “executive functioning.”

That means is that they had developed the skills needed to take advantage of what is being taught in school, said the report’s lead author Christina Weiland, a researcher at Harvard when the study was done and currently an incoming assistant professor at the University of Michigan.

“For example, they’ve learned that they need to raise their hands before yelling out an answer,” she explained. “They’ve gotten better at keeping numbers in their heads when doing a math problem and remembering the teacher’s instructions. They’ve gotten better at shifting their attention from a distracting peer to what the teacher is saying.”

Those kinds of self-regulatory behaviors are highly predictive of how well you do later in life, Weiland said. 

There were some kids who benefited more than others from prekindergarten: Latino children, and to a lesser extent, Asian and African American children.

Weiland was able to study the impact of preschool in a sort of “natural” experiment. In Boston, kids qualify for a free, full-day preschool program during the school year if they turn 4  by Sept. 1.

Children born after that date must wait a year before they are eligible.

For the study, Weiland tested 969 kids who'd finished a full school year of preschool in 2008-2009 and compared them 1,049 kids who weren't quite old enough to have made the previous year's cutoff and so were just starting preschool. (Many of them had spent that year in daycare and being cared for by relatives or in other preschool programs.)

Experts unaffiliated with the new research welcomed the new report.

“I think this is a very important study since the effects weren’t just in children at a lower economic level,” said Patrick Tolan, a professor in the Curry School of Education and director of the Youth-Nex Center at the University of Virginia. “Just as important, though, is the implication that the boost in skills may very much depend on having high quality staff and using programs that have been empirically tested.”

Matia Finn-Stevenson, a research scientist and associate director of the Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy and director of the School of the 21st Century at Yale University, agreed that the quality of the program is all important.

“In this study the children were in a high-quality educational environment with teachers with masters degrees, teachers receiving coaching, etc.,” she said. “I know parents who are not satisfied with their PreK and they have told me they simply have to look the other way and not make waves because they have no alternatives.”

How can parents figure out whether their PreK program is good?

Finn-Stevenson suggests that “parents should look for a place that allows parents to come in at any time to see the PreK in action. Look for staff continuity – how long have they been at the school/program? How often and in what ways do they interact with the children? What is the overall atmosphere? How are the children interacting?”

One thing that’s unclear at this point is whether the gains in PreK will carry over into later years. That’s a topic that still needs to be researched, Tolan said.

Julio Cortez / AP file

Community members will have to decide whether eventually to reopen Sandy Hook Elementary School after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults on Dec. 14.

Classes are set to resume Tuesday in Newtown, Conn. -- everywhere but at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six adults on Friday.

The school has been closed indefinitely, authorities said Monday, while law enforcement officials process the crime scene, a grim task that could take months. 

But what happens after the investigation to the site at 12 Dickinson Drive remains in unclear. Whether it can -- or should -- reopen to serve 525 kindergarten through fourth-graders depends on how the community and the children respond, experts say.

For now, some local parents say it’s too soon to tell.

“I haven’t even given it any thought,” said Andrew Paley, 40, of Sandy Hook, father of 9-year-old twins Ben and Ethan, both Sandy Hook students who were at the school during Friday’s rampage. 

Students from Sandy Hook are set to begin classes soon at Chalk Hill School in nearby Monroe, district officials said. The building has not been used as a school for 18 months, according to local press reports, and is being renovated quickly to accommodate the Sandy Hook classes. Though there is no firm date for them to start in the new site, being together in class should help students begin to heal, experts said.

It’s important for young children to resume normal routines as quickly as possible, said Amy Smith, president of the National Association of School Psychologists.

“For kids to recover from an event like this, they need to be safe and they need to believe they are safe,” Smith said. 

But whether the student Sandy Hook students at those kids -- or any children -- can return to the Sandy Hook site, a building where youngsters and adults were shot, most multiple times, is doubtful, said Dr. Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School.

“You have to think about what’s going to help these kids most in terms of regaining a sense of safety and minimizing the effects of trauma,” Gold said. “You can’t bring them back to that school. You have to think of it as a place that has been contaminated.”

Across the U.S., schools and other venues that have been the site of mass shootings have had to grapple with the question of what to do with the buildings.

For some, it’s been a matter of removing all signs of carnage and getting students back to class as quickly as possible. At Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., the cafeteria that was the site of a 1998 shooting opened less than a week after freshman Kip Kinkel opened fire, killing two students and wounding 24.

But at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo., the school was closed for four months after an April 1999 shooting that killed 12 students and a teacher, plus the two gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The school’s library, where much of the attack occurred, was replaced with an airy atrium and a new library was built elsewhere on campus.

Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall, the primary site of a 2007 shooting that left 32 victims and the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, dead, eventually was reconfigured and renovated. The second floor space was turned into the school’s center for Peace Studies & Violence Prevention, said spokesman Mark Owczarski.

“In essence, the building continues,” he said. “It has a new life, a new look.”

In Aurora, Colo., the movie theater where gunman James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 58 in July will reopen next month, according a letter from Tim Warner, president and chief executive of Cinemark. The company made the decision to refurbish the Aurora Century Theater after surveying the community. Victims and their families will be invited to the site to visit before the opening on Jan. 17. 

But some spaces have not been reclaimed. The one-room Amish schoolhouse that was the site of a 2006 shooting was razed after Charles Roberts opened fire on a dozen girls barricaded inside, eventually killing five. A new schoolhouse was built on a different site in Nickel Mines, in Lancaster County, Pa., according to press accounts.

“I thought there was a widespread feeling in the community that it was important to remove the building,” community spokesman Herman Bontrager told USA Today at the time. “Especially for the children, but not only for the children.”

Only time will tell if the Sandy Hook Elementary School site can be resurrected enough to feel safe for kids, said Gold.

“If you think about a workplace setting, adults could work through that trauma,” she said. “A little kid might not even understand what is disturbing to them.”

Related stories: 

• Newtown begins burying 'little souls' lost in slaughter
• After massacre, parents' divide deepens on guns
• Parents struggle to explain shooting deaths

By Karen Rowan
MyHealthNewsDaily

Children with migraine headaches may do worse in school than other students, a new study suggests.

Kids in the study who suffered episodic migraines (i.e., migraines occurring fewer than 14 days each month) were 1.3 times more likely perform below average in school, compared to kids who didn't have any type of headache. And kids with chronic migraines (i.e., migraines occurring 15 or more days each month) were 1.6 times more likely to perform below average in school, compared to kids without headaches.

"For years, we've had few studies that have linked the symptoms of migraines to the burden on children and families," said Dr. Lenora Lehwald, a neurologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Studies such as this one may help get "buy-in" from schools in helping kids who suffer migraines get prompt treatment, she said.

"Children with migraines need immediate treatment, or their meds won't work as well," said Lehwald, who was not involved in the study. "Having the school understand the significance of the headache helps move the treatment more quickly along," she said.

Kids with migraines often have to deal not only with their physical pain, but also the frustration of adults not understanding the condition, Lehwald said. "This is not a malingering child, this is a pathology that needs treatment."

Migraines and school
In the study, researchers looked at 5,700 children in Brazil, between ages 5 and 12, collecting data by interviewing teachers and parents. The study was conducted by researchers at Merck & Co., a pharmaceutical company, and is published today (Oct. 29) in the journal Neurology.

Of the 1,108 children in the study who had no headaches, 257 (23 percent) were rated by their teachers as performing below average in school. By contrast, of the 486 children with episodic migraines, 158 (33 percent) were rated as performing below average, and 13 of the 35 (37 percent) of children with chronic migraines were rated as such.

In addition, the study showed that kids with migraines were also more likely to have missed at least one day of school in the last six months, and more likely to have left school before the end of the school day, as compared with children who get tension headaches rather than migraines.

In her experience treating children who suffer migraines, Lehwald said, she has met some patients who feel the school doesn’t understand how physically debilitating their symptoms can be. "The school may think the kid is making up the symptoms. Kids feel very discouraged, and like nobody understands."

Such feelings may further affect children's moods and self-esteem, and make them even less likely to report their symptoms, she said.

What parents can do
Parents can also help their help children who have migraines do better in school by keeping them on regular schedules, Lehwald said. For children with migraines, "having a very even-keel lifestyle puts them less at risk of having a migraine. Staying hydrated, not skipping meals, adhering to a good sleep schedule," can all help, she said. "They need a predictable 24-hour schedule."

Parents can also model for their children the type of attention they need to give to their migraines as soon as one starts. A migraine “can be a really debilitating experience if not treated as an emergency. Parents can help a child learn that, too."

• 11 Tips to Lower Stress
• 10 Ways to Promote Kids' Healthy Eating Habits
• 10 Celebrities with Chronic Illnesses