ABSTRACT
The impending expansion of pre-school facilities in this country partly reflects the importance which has come to be attached in recent years to two trends of thinking about children's development. The example of the National Child Development Study has been dwelt on at some length in order to make clear the nature of the evidence on which many recent recommendations and actions in the field of domestic influences on learning in young children have been based. In the light of studies such as the National Child Development Study, which have investigated the relationship between home and education, particular attention has been drawn to the problems of disadvantaged sectors of the population and the tendency for the children to fall behind in achievement and adjustment, in their educational or occupational careers. The National Child Development Study became evident that the connection between disadvantage and underachievement had a lot to do with the ways in which the two concepts are defined.
