This report examines the societal and economic benefits of investing in children’s early brain development. It also assesses public child care, preschool, home-visiting and parenting education programs in Texas and makes recommendations for possible reforms.

Increasingly, stakeholders from diverse sectors acknowledge there is a window of opportunity early in life in which the brain is particularly susceptible to effective interventions with measurable long-term benefits. The authors undertook this paper with the principal purpose of setting priorities for investment in early childhood brain development.