With funding from the Pew Center on the States, we conducted a study to determine the effectiveness of the My Baby and Me Project--an early, intensive parenting intervention--originally designed to prevent child abuse and neglect. In the Pew project, we developed a comparative effectiveness trial with at-risk children to examine a wide range of maternal and child outcomes at age 5 to address the following three major research questions: (1) Does an intensive, comprehensive, early parenting intervention--beginning during pregnancy and lasting 2 1/2 years--significantly improve children's language, cognition, and socioemotional development? More specifically, does maternal participation in the high- vs. low-intensity (or control) conditions of the My Baby and Me intervention program improve preschool readiness? (2) Do acquired parenting skills developed from birth to age 2 1/2 for mothers in the high- and low-intensity conditions relate to their children's preparedness for entrance into the formal school environment at age 5? (3) Do high-risk mothers who participated in the high- and low-intensity conditions differ in the frequency of CPS-reported child neglect as well as the variety of family outcomes (e.g., fertility, educational attainment, partner stability and workforce participation)? (author abstract)