ABSTRACT
The intervention was characterized by weekly home visits to mother and child at which time maternal instruction and educational procedures and materials were disseminated and by the use of women, as parent educators, who were indigenous to the same poverty-stricken population. The intervention, called the Mother-Child Home Program, consisted of two, 1/2 hour visits to the home each week for seven months each year over two years. The toys and books were permanently assigned to the child, to encourage post-program interaction. Dr. Levenstein's goal was to help low-income families assume the same educational function which many middle-class parents carry out informally in the raising of their children. The reading and arithmetic achievement for experimental and control children on an achievement test with national norms showed similar differences between them. From teachers' judgments and school records the experimental children are having significantly fewer academic and behavioral problems in school.
