1966 The UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) is founded by husband and wife Hal and Nancy Robinson, psychologists at UNC and housed in a building adjacent to one of Chapel Hill’s elementary schools; as it grows, FPG occupies multiple nearby buildings.
1966 FPG opens a child care center that, for 47 years, served children from 6 weeks to 5 years old and their families and provided the basis for several landmark studies in early childhood health and education.
1970 James (Jim) Gallagher became director of FPG, remaining in this role until 1987. Gallagher made many vital contributions to educational policy, including in the passage of the 1975 Education of All Handicapped Children Act, known today as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the introduction of the Individualized Education Plan, which public schools around the country now use to ensure children with special needs get appropriate education. Gallagher also worked closely with former Governor James B. Hunt to create the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, the nation’s first residential school for talented students in science and mathematics at the secondary level.
1971 The Technical Assistance Development System, the first national technical assistance (TA) project, launches. After many name changes over the years, it became the Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Center. Through 2024 ECTA provided help and consultation to all U.S. states and jurisdictions, facilitating the work of state administrators, teachers and service providers as they implemented programs for children with disabilities and their families.
1972 Craig Ramey, Joe Sparling and Barbara Wasik begin the Abecedarian Project, a landmark randomized study of high-quality early childhood education (ECE) on children from low-income families. Four cohorts of infants were assigned to the FPG childcare program or a control group and were assessed annually from birth through age 8 and then at ages 12, 15, 21, 30, 35, and 40. The study's findings demonstrated the profound, long-term effects of high-quality ECE and significantly influenced the fields of child development, education, health, and economic policy. Two additional cohorts of children and their parents participate in Project CARE, a randomized study of home visiting that adds to the emerging use of home visits as an early intervention approach.
1978 Joe Sparling and Isabelle Lewis publish the Abecedarian curriculum as a book called Learning Games that, after iterations for different age groups and for parents as well as teachers, is still in use in more than 10 countries, including the U.S.
1980 Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) were created at FPG by Thelma Harms and Dick Clifford. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, major research projects used the ECERS to evaluate program quality, and the scale also found significant use in program improvement efforts. In 1998, FPG's Debby Cryer joined Harms and Clifford to co-author a revised edition of the scale (the ECERS-R), which the trio further updated in 2005 and 2014. The ECERS baton has been passed to a new author team, which includes FPG’s Noreen Yazejian, Iheoma Iruka, Ximena Franco-Jenkins, who are developing the fourth edition of the ECERS.
1985 The Project CARE research team began an evaluation of an intervention for low-birthweight babies that replicated CARE’s home- and center-based programs, supplemented with pediatric follow-up. The Infant Health and Development Program was funded at 8 sites by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Improved cognitive development was seen in children participating in the program. Findings included positive long-term effects on children’s academic performance and enhanced parenting skills.
1993 Carolina Fragile X Project begins, led by Don Bailey and Deborah Hatton. Up to this point, no one had studied the earliest development of children with Fragile X. After finding nearly a hundred families of young children with Fragile X, the project expanded and evolved as a collaborative, multidisciplinary team studied the condition.
1993 Evaluation of NC’s Smart Start Initiative launches with Donna Bryant as principal investigator. Governor Hunt started this public-private partnership to help all children enter school healthy and ready to succeed. For the next decade, a team of researchers from FPG and other UNC departments conducted the statewide evaluation of Smart Start, showing results of improving access and quality and helping other states as they began their own versions of this pioneering approach.
1995 The Cost, Quality and Outcomes Study of 400 child care centers in 4 states reported on the poor quality in most early childhood programs, especially in infant-toddler classrooms. Conducted by Dick Clifford and other FPGers, this study raised the nation’s concern about the education, training, and compensation of the teaching staff and focused policymakers on strengthening standards, providing training and identifying new ways to support the cost of higher quality programs.
2001 The National Center for Early Development and Learning, led by Dick Clifford and others at FPG, began the first multi-state study of state-funded pre-K programs to include classroom observations, child assessments, and kindergarten follow-up. The findings filled an information gap about pre-K and served as an information base for states and education agencies starting or expanding services for young children and their families. A second study of 5 more states followed, leading to present day evaluations of pre-K programs in North Carolina and Georgia conducted by Sandra Soliday Hong.
2002 Dean Fixsen and Karen Blase launch the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) to accelerate growth in the field of implementation science. Its researchers, implementation scientists, and staff are currently working on several projects in multiple states across the U.S. related to language, literacy, math, and behavioral health needs for students of all ages and abilities. This work is impacting hundreds of teachers and thousands of students. For example, the NYS Big 4 project itself involves 118 schools, 652 teachers, and 42,973 students.
2003 The Family Life Project (FLP), a long-running longitudinal birth-cohort study of over 1,200 children and primary caregivers in six low income and rural counties in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, begins. In 2016 the FLP joined the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes Program, a national study to understand the effects of a broad range of early environmental influences on child health and development.
2005 Led by Donna Bryant, Noreen Yazejian, and Iheoma Iruka, FPG becomes the National Evaluation Partner for the Educare Learning Network. FPG continues to facilitate a community of practice for evaluators at the 25 Educare schools nationwide; guides the committee that selects measures of children, families, and teaching and family support staff; serves as the repository of network data; and produces internal reports for leaders to improve programs and external papers to inform the field about best practices in ECE.
2005 Targeted Reading Intervention began, which became Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI) in 2020. TRI provided over 2,000 coaching sessions to teachers and thus affected over 40,000 children.
2008 The State Implementation and Scaling-Up of Evidence-Based Practices (SISEP) Center is launched, dedicated to supporting the implementation, scaling, and sustainability of evidence-based practices to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. It has reached 151 K-12 educators across 29 states and has provided 200+ resources accessed by 250,000 users annually from all 50 states and 156 countries.
2011 FPG researchers launch Supporting Change and Reform in Preservice Teaching in North Carolina (SCRIPT-NC), helping community college faculty in all 100 NC counties prepare and train educators to support children with and without disabilities. Their webinar trainings have helped 2,500 faculty across the U.S.
2012 NC-Early Learning Network (NC-ELN) launches, running through 2022. Funded by the NCDPI, NC-ELN worked to build and expand capacity for providing high-quality inclusive settings and practices to improve outcomes of young children with, and at risk for, developmental disabilities. NC-ELN provided the support needed for successful statewide implementation of the Preschool Pyramid Model of intervention and coaching.
2012 Kara Hume and Sam Odom launch the Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (CSESA). This five-year project targeted four core areas: academic performance as measured by reading comprehension, peer and social competence, independence and behavior, and transition and families. Several of the interventions used in the model are based on evidence-based practices established by the FPG-based National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder (NPDC). In 2014, the NPDC identified 27 evidence-based practices in a systematic review of literature published from 1990-2011. From the 27 EBPs identified, the NPDC developed online modules, called the Autism Focused-Intervention Resources and Modules (AFIRM).
2013 FPG researchers produce digital publication "More Than Baby Talk: 10 Ways to Promote the Language and Communication Skills of Infants and Toddlers," which in its first two years was downloaded by more than 40,000 people and today continues to be downloaded by several thousand readers each year.
2016 FPG publishes “The Promise of the Premise: The First 50 Years of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute.”
2018 FPG launches the STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education (STEMIE) Center, a technical assistance and dissemination center that works to elevate early childhood professionals, faculty, and families’ competence and confidence in STEM learning for young children with disabilities. With 35k + stakeholders, STEMIE provides a collection of more than 350 resources and launched the My STEM Adventure app, which was named the 2024 EdTech Awards Cool Tool Finalist in the STEM solution category, and has earned 5,000+ downloads and counting.
2019 “Celebrating 50 Years of Child Development Research: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives” was published. Edited by Barbara Wasik and Sam Odom and based on presentations made at the Institute's 50th anniversary symposium, each chapter looks back on FPG's trailblazing history, analyzes contemporary issues in child development, and recommends critical new research directions.
2019 The Impact Center at FPG launches with a portfolio of projects focused across public systems such as child welfare, public health, juvenile justice, and mental/behavioral health. The Impact Center continues its work in building capacity for stronger systems and communities throughout North Carolina and several other states across the U.S. One recent project, which supports a North Carolina-based rural church summer literacy program, is working with 26+ rural communities, 200 church leaders, and more than 400 students.
2020 FPG launches the Marvin H. McKinney Scholars Program, which is a summer internship program for undergraduates who attend HBCUs and are interested in pursuing careers in child development.
2020 FPG launches the FPG Summer Graduate Internship Program in Implementation Practice for graduate students to provide professional development and experiential learning opportunities in implementation practice and research across diverse fields and in varied practice settings.
2020 FPG Faculty Fellow Iheoma Iruka launches the Equity Research Action Coalition to bring together practitioners and policymakers to develop and conduct actionable research to support the optimal development of Black children prenatally through childhood using a cultural wealth framework.
2020+ Related to the COVID-19 pandemic, FPG actively responded to the needs of children & families. ECTA was identified by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services as a hub for best practices in distance learning for young children with disabilities. Experts at FPG and their UNC colleagues developed a free toolkit to support autistic individuals and their families; first published in English, the resource was made available in 9 additional languages.
2021 FPG celebrates 50 years of excellence in TA. Beginning with the groundbreaking work that Pascal ‘Pat’ Trohanis started in the 1970s, FPG has a long and rich history of providing TA to support systems and services for young children with disabilities and their families. In addition to ECTA mentioned earlier, the Trohanis TA Projects include/have included the NC Early Learning Network, IDC-Idea Data Center, and DaSy, the Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems.
2022 FPG & UNC colleagues produce a timely toolkit for autistic individuals impacted by war. Accessible online to families and professionals, this resource provides support during times of uncertainty, conflict, and upheaval.
2022 Several teams at FPG embraced new ways to reach even more people throughout our state, our nation and around the world producing multiple new video series, new podcasts, video demonstrations, and an app.
2024 FPG moves to the former home of UNC General Administration, the Spangler building.
2025 AFIRM celebrates its 10th anniversary, highlighting 395,700+ AFIRM users worldwide in 203 countries (including all US states and territories); 86,800+ paraeducators, 80,300+ special education teachers, 74,700+ university students, and 23,200+ general ed teachers have accessed AFIRM more than 73 million times; and 3.8 million + AFIRM resources downloaded to date.
2026 FPG will celebrate its 60th anniversary.
