EARLY INTERVENTION WITH AT-RISK HISPANIC STUDENTS - EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PIACCELERATION PROGRAM IN DEVELOPING PIAGETIAN INTELLECTUAL PROCESSES

An experiment was performed to determine the effects of instruction in the Piacceleration program (PXL) on Hispanic Head Start students' acq uisition of Piagetian skills. The PXL is a hands-on, mastery-based pro gram designed to systematically instruct children in the Piagetian ski lls of classification, seriation, and conservation. The PXL group perf ormed significantly better than the control group on posttest measures of classification of objects by form, size, and orientation, and on m easures of general classification and seriation. The two groups did no t differ significantly on a posttest measure of Intelligence, the Wech sler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R). Th e participants who achieved concept mastery, however, performed signif icantly better than their nonmastery peers on the WPPSI-R Full scale.