Annotated Bibliography

Kamerman, S.B. & Kahn, A.J. (1995). Starting Right. New York: Oxford University Press.

“The Mother-Child Home Program has an impressive body of rigorous research documenting that this type of intervention with 2 and 3-year-olds ‘at risk’ has lasting impact on school performance, high school completion, and cognitive development. There are measurable positive impacts as well as on mothers’ verbal behavior with their children.” (Page 161)

Mrazek, P.J. & Haggerty, R.J. eds. (1994). Reducing risks for Mental Disorders. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

“The [Parent-Child Home Program] investigators found evidence of improvement in maternal child rearing behavior.” (Page 244)

Williams, L. T. & Fromberg, D.P., eds. (1992). Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Education. NY: Garland

A summary of the Parent-Child Home Program’s method, research data and replication. (Page 481)

DeVito, P.J. & Karon, J.P. (1990). Pittsfield Chapter 1 Program. Parent-Child Home Program Longitudinal Evaluation. Pittsfield Public Schools.

The Parent-Child Home Program group’s reading and math scores in grades 1-7 were superior to the non-Parent-Child Home Program comparison group’s, meeting national norms. “The results of this study should be disseminated widely to state, local and other sources.” (Page 1)

Springs, C. (1990). Chapter 1, Mother-Child Home Program Evaluation Results. Union. S.C.: Union County School Board Fact Sheet.

The DIAL-R post-test scores of 32 five-year-old graduates of a Parent-Child Home Program in Union, South Carolina, revealed that less than half required the district's remedial (special education) services although all had shown their “at-risk” eligibility for such services at pretest.

Greene, B.S. & Hallinger, C. (1989). Follow-up Study of Initial Group of Children in the Mother-Child Home Program. White Plains, NY: Westchester Jewish Community Services.

All of the former Parent-Child Home Program children who could be located (80%) had graduated from high school.

McLaren, L. (1988). Fostering mother-child relationships. Child Welfare, 67, 353-365.

A Parent-Child Home Program replication including Native Canadian Indian families (parents with an 8th grade mean education level), used a pre-post time series method and the Program’s validated instrument, “PACT” [Parent And Child Together], to measure a mother’s positive interaction with her child. Results showed significant improvement after the Program (p < 0.01).

Both Parent-Child Home Program and randomized control groups (from a population that was mostly middle-class with parents educated above high school) started with average IQs and both produced above average post-test IQs: Parent-Child Home Program = 106.6; Controls = 103.1, a non-significant difference. [Note: The Parent-Child Home Program’s National Center does not suggest that the Program be implemented with middle-class families. It was designed and validated as a targeted intervention for at-risk families.]

The Parent-Child Home Program group’s reading scores of 54 in 2nd and 5th grades on standardized tests, and of 51 in 7th grade, were above the national norm of 50 on the California Achievement Test (CAT) indicating long-term literacy success. The Parent-Child Home Program group’s mathematics scores of 52 in 2nd grade, of 51 in 5th grade, and of 55 in 7th grade, were above CAT's national norm of 50.

Madden, J., O'Hara, J.M., & Levenstein, P. (1984). Home again. Child Development, 55, 636-647.

Long-term [2nd grade] data were similar but above average in reading, math, and IQ (aptitude) for subject randomized Parent-Child Home Program and control groups. [Most mothers were high school graduates.]

Datta, Lois-ellin. (1983). Epilogue: We never promised you a rose garden, but one may have grown anyhow. In Consortium for Longitudinal Studies, ed., As the Twig Is Bent . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 467-479.

Datta notes that Levenstein, O’Hara and Madden make the fewest policy claims for their program among the early interventions in this book, yet “they show most clearly that their program can be implemented and maternal behavior affected.” (Page 468) “Levenstein et al., comparing long-term effects for children who had been in the program for 1 year versus 2 years, reported that reading and mathematics achievement beyond the third grade were linear functions of the amount of treatment received.” (Page 473)

Royce, J.M., Darlington, R. B. & Murray, H.W. (1983). Pooled analyses: Findings across studies. In Consortium for Longitudinal Studies, ed., As the Twig Is Bent. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 428. [Authors were independent evaluators.]

“Levenstein’s Program children at age 10 scored significantly higher than did her control group on full scale, verbal, and performance IQ score [on WISC].” (Page 428)

Lazar, I. & Darlington, R. (1982). Lasting Effects of Early Education: A Report from the Consortium of Longitudinal Studies. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 47 (serial #195).

The long-range outcome aptitude test score of Program children in 5th grade at age 10 was significantly higher than that of the non-Program control group, as it had been at age 4 just after graduation from the Program. (Table 14, Page 45)

Bradshaw-McNulty, G. & Delaney, L. (1979). An Evaluation of the Mother-Child Home Program, ESEA Title I for the Pittsfield Public School District.

“These independent evaluators found that in 3rd grade the Program children out-performed comparison subjects on the total California Achievement Test battery with a score of 49.7 to 29.3 (p <.009).”

Carnegie Quarterly. (Winter 1979) Building concepts through verbal interaction: The key to future success in school? Carnegie Corporation of New York, 27, 1-4.

“The story behind the Mother [Parent]-Child Home Program’s remarkable success is one of careful, painstaking research fraught with enough methodological problems to have defeated a less determined and visionary proponent of early intervention than Phyllis Levenstein. The Parent-Child Home Program is basically an incentives program that builds on the emotional bond between mother and child to encourage their verbal interaction long after direct assistance has been withdrawn. Thought grows through language, and language expresses thought. The Parent-Child Home Program incorporates all these elements: conceptual capacity, curiosity, social readiness, and relationship with parents in order to preserve children’s native intelligence and equip them to take advantage of school.” (Page 2)

U.S. Department of Education: Joint Dissemination Review Panel (1978). Unanimous Approval of Research Findings, 1967-1978, Mother-Child Home Program of Verbal Interaction Project. Freeport, NY: Verbal Interaction Project.

The approval by the JDRP led to the inclusion of the Mother [Parent]-Child Home Program in the National Diffusion Network and its annual Catalogue (Educational Programs That Work).

U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. (1978). Model parent-child program series, report No. 1: Mother-Child Home Program, Freeport, New York. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

“The program is designed to help parents express their caring and love by showing them a new repertoire of behavior that will stimulate these skills in their children.” (Page 4)

Goodson, B.D. & Hess, R. D. (1975). Parents As Teachers of Young Children: An Evaluative Review of Some Contemporary Concepts and Programs, revised edition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

“The Parent-Child Home Program was shown to be highly effective.” (Page 24)

Hunt, J. McV. (1975).Reflections on a decade of early education. J. of Abnormal Child Psychology, 3, 275-330.

“Most thoroughly tested of the programs is Phyllis Levenstein’s. Since the course of her investigation approaches the ideal more closely than any others I know of, it seems worthwhile to summarize the process in some detail. The development of this program has negotiated several essential hurdles in social program development. It has moved from a promising pilot project to a well developed program that has demonstrated repeatedly that it achieves gains that persist until the children get into school.” (Page 275)

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is Early Intervention Effective? A Report on Longitudinal Evaluations of Preschool Programs, Vol. 2. U.S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare: Office of Child Development, Children's Bureau, DHEW Publication No. (OHD) 74-25.

“It is in the social sphere that Levenstein’s method is most distinctive. There are two critical aspects in which it differs from the two other approaches we have examined thus far: intervention in group settings and tutoring in the home. First, Levenstein’s strategy has as its target not the child but the mother-child dyad as an interactive system. Second, the principal and direct agent of intervention becomes not the teacher or the tutor, but the mother. As a result, intervention does not terminate at the end of the program, but continues as long as the patterns of joint activity and interaction between mother and child endure. The system exhibits a distinctive hand in glove quality, and thereby an efficiency that would be difficult to achieve in non-enduring relationships.” (Page 26)

Phillips, J.R. (1973). Family Cognitive Study. Final Report to the Foundation for Child Development. Freeport, NY: Verbal Interaction Project.

The pre-test IQ scores of 52 younger siblings of Program participants were significantly higher (8 points (p < .05)) than the pre-test scores of their older Program siblings, suggesting “downward diffusion of the [effects] from the older sib to the younger.” (Page 25)

Wargo, M.J., Campeau, P.L., & Tallmadge, G.K. (1971). Further Examination of Exemplary Programs for Educating Disadvantaged Children, Final Report. Palo Alto, CA: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences.

The federal government selected the Mother-Child Home Program [Parent-Child Home Program] to be one of 6 programs chosen from among 400 candidates. “On the basis of data collected from tests, it can be concluded that the Mother-Child Home Program achieved its objectives in producing statistically and educationally significant IQ results.” (Page 14)

The authors chose the Mother [Parent]-Child Home Program as one of the two best preschool (pre-K) programs in the United States.

Studies & Publications by Dr. Phyllis Levenstein

Levenstein, P. & Walzer, S.E. (1999). Poster: Long-term impact of a verbal interaction program for at-risk toddlers. In Lamb Parker, F., Hagen, J., Robinson, R., & Clark, C. eds. Children and Families in an Era of Rapid Change: Creating a Shared Agenda for Researchers, Practitioners & Policy Makers. Summary of Conference Proceedings. Washington, DC: Administration on Children, Youth & Families (DHHS).

“High school graduation of low-income students may be achieved through early enrollment in The Parent-Child Home Program.” (Effective means of high school dropout prevention)

Levenstein, P., Levenstein S., Shiminski J.A., & Stolzberg J.E. (1998). Long-term impact of a verbal interaction program for at-risk toddlers: an exploratory study of high school outcomes in a replication of the Mother-Child Home Program. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology; 19, 267-285.

“Subjects who had completed this program [Parent-Child Home Program] as toddlers were significantly less likely than randomized controls to drop out of school (15.7% vs. 40.0%, p. = 0.03) and more likely to have graduated (84.1% vs. 53.9%, p = 0.01).” (Page 267)

Levenstein, P. & O'Hara, J.M. (1993). The necessary lightness of mother-child play. In K.B. MacDonald, ed., Parents and Children Playing. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

“Early childhood learning can function best in a non-didactic dyadic climate of light spontaneity.” (Page 234)

Levenstein, P. (1992). The Mother-Child Home Program: Research methodology and the real world. In J. McCord & R.E. Tremblay, eds., Preventing Antisocial Behavior (New York: Guilford Press.

Details “real world” research vicissitudes endemic to field research of early interventions involving parents.

Levenstein, P. (1988). Messages from Home. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.

The basic book for professional and general audiences describing the social background, theory, research, content and implementation of the Parent-Child Home Program, with case examples.

Levenstein, P. (1988). Which homes? A response to Scarr and McCartney. Child Development. 60, 514-516

“...futility of using the Mother-Child Home Program to prevent school disadvantage in [non-at risk] preschoolers.” (Page 216)

Levenstein, P. (1983). The Mother-Child Home Program of the Verbal Interaction Project. In Consortium for Longitudinal Studies, ed., As the Twig is Bent. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Short-term and long-range outcome data and research designs for groups entering from 1967 to 1976.

O’Hara, J.M. & Levenstein, P. (1981). Second Year Progress Report: 9/15/80 - 9/14/81: Tracing the Parent-Child Network. Final Report, Grant No. NIEG 800042, National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education.

“Preliminary analyses ... have shown that MCHP mothers scored significantly higher on maternal interaction behavior than did control mothers” (Page 24)

Levenstein, P. (1981). Ethical considerations in home-based programs. In M. Bryce & J. C. Lloyd, eds., Treating Families in the Home. Springfield, Illinois: C.C. Thomas.

Presents ten ethical considerations for home-based programs

Levenstein, P. (1979). The parent-child network. In A. Simmons-Martin & D.K. Calvert, eds., Parent-Infant Intervention. New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc.

“We have found empirical support in one group for the existence of a parent-child network.”(Page 263)

Levenstein, P. (1977). The Mother-Child Home Program. In M.C. Day & R.K. Parker, eds., The Preschool in Action, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 27-49.

Data on the differential effects of the original Parent-Child Home Program in program variations: length of the program and the educational backgrounds of Home Visitors.

Levenstein, P. (1976). Cognitive development through verbalized play: The Mother-Child Home Programme. In J.S. Bruner, A. Jolly & K. Sylva, eds. Play. New York: Basic Books, 286-296.

“Toddler’s play using interactive language with a parent aids the developmental task of learning to learn.” (Page 296)

Levenstein, P. & Staff of Verbal Interaction Project. (1976). Child's Behavior Traits (CBT). In O.G. Johnson, ed. Tests and measurements in child development: Handbook II, Volume I. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

“Developed for the Parent-Child Home Program at the Verbal Interaction Project, the Child’s Behavior Traits has been found to be a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating children's socioemotional maturity.”

Madden, J., Levenstein, P., & Levenstein, S. (1976). Longitudinal IQ outcomes of the Mother-Child Home Program. Child Development, 47, 1015-1025.

“The long-term [3rd grade] data support the first year’s promise of the Mother-Child Home Program’s effectiveness.” (p. 1023) [Most mothers were not high school graduates.]

Levenstein, P. (1975). A message from home? Theory Into Practice 11, 157-162.

Discusses possibilities of using The Parent-Child Home Program with developmentally delayed children and their parents.

Levenstein, P. (1972): But does it work in homes away from home? Theory Into Practice 11, 157-162.

Children’s IQ gains in first four replications paralleled those in the original Parent-Child Home Program.

Levenstein, P. (1970). Cognitive growth in preschoolers through verbal interaction with mothers. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 38, 116-121.

Report on the significant effects of a small pilot project that preceded the Parent-Child Home Program.

Levenstein, P. & Sunley, R. (1968). Stimulation of verbal interaction between disadvantaged mothers and children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 38, 116-121.

Report on the significant effects of a small pilot project that initiated the Parent-Child Home Program.

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