ABSTRACT

Thousands of infants and children who live in environments characterized by emotional deprivation, intellectual poverty, and family instability present this country with one of its most urgent problems because of their limited development, restricted horizons, and wasted or seriously troubled lives. The proposed research is a longitudinal study of development in infancy and early childhood utilizing a multidisciplinary approach in a service-centered investigation. The major dimension is the environment, ranging from own home to foster home to institution. The seventy-five infants to be studied in the program of intervention will be obtained primarily through the cooperation of state and local departments of welfare, the obstetrical and pediatrie departments of the Yale-New Haven Medical Center, and other local agencies. It would of course be extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to conduct this kind of research in the absence of such cooperative agencies and departments.