About PEELS

In this important study, researchers are following almost 3,000 children with disabilities as they progress through preschool and into their early elementary years. The children were 3 to 5 years old at the start of the study. For the first several years, PEELS was funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). It is now supported by the Department's National Center for Special Education Research in the Institute of Education Sciences. Westat has been contracted to manage this study, which will examine children's preschool experiences and outcomes, their transition to kindergarten, and their early elementary school experiences and outcomes. Five research questions focus the study:

• What are the characteristics of children receiving preschool special education?
• What preschool programs and services do they receive?
• What are their transitions like - between early intervention (programs for children from birth to 3 years old) and preschool, and between preschool and elementary school?
• How do these children function and perform in preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary school?
• Which child, service, and program characteristics are associated with children's peformance over time on assessments of academic and adaptive skills?

To answer these questions, researchers are conducting telephone interviews with parents of preschoolers with disabilities, one-on-one assessments of children participating in this study, and mail surveys with the children's teachers and other service providers, school principals, district administrators, and state education agency administrators. Data collection began in fall 2003 and will be repeated in winter 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009.

PEELS is part of a group of studies on the experiences, special services, and outcomes of children, youth, and young adults with disabilities. The remaining child-focused studies in this group are designed to address other age ranges between birth and early adulthood: NEILS, a study of early intervention for infants and toddlers; SEELS, a study of elementary and middle-school age youth; and NLTS2, the second multi-year study of high-school age youth as they transition into adulthood. Together, these studies should provide a complete picture of the experiences of children and youth receiving special education services.

The PEELS print brochures are available in Adobe Portable Document Format. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them. If you don't have the reader, you can get it at the Acrobat Reader web site.

PEELS Brochure - English
PEELS Brochure - Spanish