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Dr. Burton L. White (1929-October 6, 2013) was a United States psychologist influential in the field of early infant development. After earning a PhD in Psychology from Brandeis University in 1960, White spent the following five decades dedicated to researching the impact of early experiences on infant and child development. Through his research, White helped to design and implement services for young children and their parents focusing on promoting healthy development of language, intellectual abilities, trust/social attachment, and curiosity.

Family History
Burton L. White was born in Boston, MA in 1929. He lived in Roxbury, MA with his mother, father, brother, and sister until he graduated from Roxbury High School in 1944. White met his first wife, Jacqueline Want, while earning his Master’s degree at Boston University. They married in 1959 and had four children together, two sons and two daughters. White and Jacqueline (Want) White remained married until her death in 1978. In 1986, White remarried to Janet Hodgson. They remained married until her death in 2011. Dr. Burton White died of congestive heart failure at the age of 84 on October 6, 2013.

Educational History
White attended college at Tufts University and earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1949. He was enlisted in the army during the Korean War and served from 1951-1953. After returning from the war, White enrolled in college at Boston University and earned a B.A. in Philosophy in 1955. He continued at Boston University to earn a Masters in Psychology the following year. White received his PhD in Psychology under the advisement of Richard Held from Brandeis University in 1960, a year after his marriage to Jacqueline Want. His dissertation was titled The Role of Visual Experience in Velocity Perception and was later published as a book by the same name. During his doctoral program, White’s advisor, Dr. Richard Held, was focusing on the learning about the development of visual-motor coordination. Dr. Held and Alan Hein used experiments with kittens to demonstrate the importance of early visual-motor experiences (see ). White was interested in how the animal studies related to early infant development. In a study of infants reared in a state-supported institution with limited contact with adults, White found that small amounts of extra handling in the first five weeks of the infant’s life resulted in more visual interest in the environment compared to those not receiving extra care. Dr. White’s focus on early infant development continued throughout his career. He served on the faculties of Brandeis University, Tufts University, Northeastern University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University.

Harvard Preschool Project
In 1965, White helped to initiate and became the director of the Harvard Preschool Project. The project was based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While other studies at the time focused on either older children or those children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the purpose of the Harvard Preschool Project was to investigate how early experiences for children from all backgrounds impacted later educational and social development. In particular, the researchers were interested in what capabilities could be expected from six year old children and how did those capabilities develop. At the start of the project, the researchers surveyed local elementary schools for the names of children and their families that were either higher functioning and well-adjusted to the school system or lower functioning and more challenging in the classroom. These parents were then contacted and asked whether they were expecting a baby. Those that were expecting were invited to be a part of the study. Over the next decade, observations and assessments of development were conducted with the families to investigate the aspects of parenting that foster or hinder development. The project later included a pilot training program for parents to investigate the implementation of the lessons learned from the observational studies.

The final results of the project are published in a book titled The Origins of Human Competence: The Final Report of the Harvard Preschool Project. As a brief summary of the findings, the research emphasized the importance of development in four key areas: language, intellectual abilities, social skills, and curiosity. The study also indicated that stress, ignorance, and lack of assistance were primary hindrances for families while raising children. The findings resulted in support of education and training programs for parents during the early years of their children’s development.

Brookline Early Education Project
White was the first director of the Brookline Early Education Project. This project was an eleven year research and service project (1972-1983) investigating the impact of quality early education on later academic success (Tivnan & Pierson, 1982). During this time, the researchers worked with 285 families that ranged in socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds coming from urban and suburban areas around Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. Educational and diagnostic services were offered to families with children from the third trimester of pregnancy until entering Kindergarten to help ensure that children entered kindergarten healthy and academically ready. The results of the study were reported in a report titled Evaluation of a School-Based Early Education Program: Results from the Brookline Early Education Project. Initial findings indicated better social and academic skills for students in kindergarten and 2nd grade when their families participated in the program. A more recent study looked at the adult outcomes of these students. The results suggested that the program was particularly effective in the long term compared to matched peers for those students from urban areas. The program is still active today.

New Parents as Teachers
The New Parents as Teachers is a program that provides education and support to parents during the early years of their children’s lives. It was initiated in 1981 after the Missouri State Department of Education hired White and colleagues to create, implement, and evaluate a model parent education program. New Parents as Teachers was initially implemented in four school districts across the state of Missouri including rural, suburban, urban, and small town settings. The program was informed by three major findings from the Harvard Preschool Project: the first three years of life heavily impact lifelong development, lack of preparation and support for parents increases stress and decreases pleasure and educational development, and that there was reliable and useful information for parents and professionals available but not being delivered. Being open to all first time parents, the program was delivered to a wide range of families across cultural backgrounds.

Services were offered from the third trimester of pregnancy until the child’s third birthday. The program included two primary services: group get-togethers and private home visits. During the sessions, parents were provided with information regarding typical development in areas such as language, intellectual abilities, and social skills. Unlike other programs at the time, the program sought to support well-rounded development in a comfortable and fun manner.

The evaluation of the program was conducted by an outside agency, Research and Training Associates of Overland Park, Kansas (for a summary see ). Results indicated that the program had high acceptability rates among the parents with 99% of the parents reporting satisfaction. In addition to acceptability, the impact of the program on language and intellectual development also was measured. Compared to matched-samples of children from nonparticipating school districts in the region, children from parents in the current study performed significantly better on normed tests of intellectual and language abilities. Based on the early successes of the program, it has now been expanded to all 50 states as well as six international countries.

Playtentials
In 1970, White developed and tested a line of toys called Playtentials. The toys were designed based on White’s finding about the importance of early visual-motor development in infants. There were two series of Playtentials, one for infants from three weeks to four months and the other for infants from three and a half months to six and a half months. The toys were meant to be placed in the crib setting within the reach of the infant. They allowed infants to explore their environment through touch, sound, and sight.

Books
Along with numerous journal publications and reports, White also authored several books on parenting and early development. The following is a list of some of his most famous books in the field of early childhood development:
 * 1970: Human Infants: Experience and Psychological Development
 * 1973: Experience and Environment: Major Influences on the Development of the Young Child
 * 1975: The First Three Years of Life
 * 1980: A Parent’s Guide to the First Three Years
 * 1985: A Journey Through the First Year of Life
 * 1987: Educating the Infant and Toddler
 * 1994: Raising a Happy Unspoiled Child
 * 1995: The New First Three Years of Life

Major Theoretical Contributions
White is well-known for several of his perspectives on parenting, early child development, and early education. He had several key ideas that permeated much of his research and programs. First, White emphasized the importance of developing four key areas by the age of three: language, intellectual abilities, trust/social attachment, and curiosity. He argued “If you don’t do a good job with a child in the first three years, can you turn them around subsequently? Remediation is difficult, if not impossible. We just haven’t learned how to take a slow three year old and turn him around. That is why prevention and optimization are so important”.

Another key point that White emphasized was the importance of family for young child development. In an interview in 1985, White told the interviewer that there are six people that should be raising a child until their third birthday: the two parents and four grandparents. White stated, “In the first six months of that baby’s life, one of those 6 people is there most of the time, just occasionally a baby sitter in the first 6 months. After that from 6 months to 2 ½ - 3 years, the majority of the time that baby is awake should be spent with one of those six people.” His reasoning was that these individuals will have an irrational love for that child and would best be able to get the child where they need to be developmentally.

White’s final major contribution was that despite the importance of parents in their children’s development, there is a lack of available training and support for new parents. In a report written by White, he concluded that “We have apparently underemphasized the role of the family as the child's first educational delivery system. We do not prepare prospective parents to do the job of helping children acquire the foundation requirements for formal education.” White’s conclusions about the importance of early childhood education through parents and the lack of available services for these parents have helped to guide the creation and continued implementation of programs and projects to address these needs.