Head Start Evaluation and Research Center, University of Kansas. Report No. III, Effects of a Language Program on Children in a Head Start Nursery.

A compensatory language program was administered to 13 children, considered, for the most part, as culturally disadvantaged and linguistically deficient. These 13 children comprised the experimental group, while 12 other children were used as a control group. The ages of the children ranged from 3 years, 3 months to 5 years, 10 months. The average age of the experimental group was less than that of the control group. The experimental group was divided into three groups on the basis of language ability. The language program required the children to describe things, listen to the language models of the teacher, and imitate those models. Pretests administered at the beginning of the 5-month program were (1) the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA), (2) the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), and (3) the Irwin Articulation Test. Only the ITPA and PPVT were given as posttests. The scores of the experimental and control groups on the ITPA and PPVT did not differ significantly except on two subtests of the ITPA, both of which tested grammar skills. Thus, it was concluded that the language progra did produce some gain in the language ability of the experimental group. It was also found that the most able children at the beginning of the program benefited the most from the program. (WD)