Introduction

In 1974 the Children's Bureau, a unit in the Office of Child Development (OCD), issued a monograph reviewing longitudinal evaluations of preschool programs entitled Is Early Intervention Effective. OCD has recently funded a number of the nation's outstanding leaders in child development and early childhood education to collaborate in a major data-gathering effort to accumulate the longitudinal findings of their several studies. Many critics of the public schools offer persuasive arguments for changing the schools to better accommodate the culturally-different child, including greater and more appropriate involvement of the child's family. At Large-scale Parent-Child Development Centers, established as national experiments, have clearly demonstrated the value of parental training in the first years of life followed by preschool group experiences in which parent and child are involved and continue to work closely together. The mother is coached in her communication with the child in order to promote intellectual and personality growth and development while establishing and maintaining strong affectional bonds.