I can imagine many studies will show all sorts of conflicting results based on the fact that kids are so damn different. They develop at such different rates that two kids identically aged can behave and think years apart.
Our son was in a position to either be young or old going into school. Having never done it before we consulted with other kindergarten/grade 1 teachers (my wife teacher Jr. High so we had access) and the daycare we were sending him as they work directly with the school to help transition. The general consensus we got was that the only real benefit of starting early would be the savings in daycare costs. What's more is every worker that knew him personally (and several had for about 4 years) cautioned us greatly against putting him specifically in early. Some kids are very mature socially and want to go to school at 4... ours did not. Putting him in anyways ran the risk of starting him out on a wrong foot and disliking school. By the time the following July rolled around and he was 2 months from Kindergarten he was noticeably excited to go and was interacting with his peers in a far better way. Kids vary quite a bit month to month, so an entire year of socializing can be dramatic.
You're always going to find kids who do great going in younger, and kids that don't. Personally I feel the general tilt should be towards being older, but at the end of the day you have to consider the kid. As mentioned once before in this thread, for us a big factor was also letting a kid be a kid for another year. You only get a few years to play before school, homework, exams, more exams, 9-5 grind, and death. Maybe one more year to play isn't so bad.
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