The available data emphasize the long-term cost effectiveness of early intervention. The highly specialized, comprehensive services necessary to produce the desired developmental gains are often, on a short-term basis, more costly than traditional school-aged service delivery models. However, there are significant examples of long-term cost savings that result from such early intervention programs.

--A longitudinal study of children who had participated in the Perry Preschool Project (Schweinhart and Weikart, 1980) found that when schools invest about $3,000 for 1 year of preschool education for a child, they immediately begin to recover their investment through savings in special education services. Benenfits included $668 from the mother's released time while the child attended preschool; $3,353 saved by the public schools because children with preschool education had fewer years in grades; and $10,798 in projected lifetime earnings for the child.

--Wood (1981) calculated the total cumulative costs to age 18 of special education services to child beginning intervention at: (a) birth; (b) age 2; (c) age 6; and (d) at age 6 with no eventual movement to regular education. She found that the total costs were actually less if begun at birth! Total cost of special services begun at birth was $37,273 and total cost if begun at age 6 was between $46,816 and $53,340. The cost is less when intervention is earlier because of the remediation and prevention of developmental problems which would have required special services later in life.

--A 3-year follow-up in Tennessee showed that for every dollar spent on early treatment, $7.00 in savings were realized within 36 months. This savings resulted from deferral or special class placement and institutionalization of severe behavior disordered children (Snider, Sullivan, and Manning, 1974).

--A recent evaluation of Colorado's state-wide early intervention services reports a cost savings of $4.00 for every dollar spent within a 3-year period (McNulty, Smith, and Soper, 1983).

Click here to view the National Early Intervention Longitudinal Study 2007

Click here to see information about Early Intervention for children with Autism

Related Information

•   Early Intervention Fact Sheets
  New Reports on Early Intervention
•   First Five Years Fund Briefing
  by Kathleen Hebbeler, Ph.D.