Our understanding of the interconnected and highly embedded nature of ecological influences on child and family development has served as a major conceptual framework for typically developing children and vulnerable children alike. Anyone involved with children and families can readily appreciate how complex these influences are, and how change in any one aspect of the ecology can easily alter numerous others, often in unexpected ways. One task for early interventionists is to be able to conceptualize and anticipate these effects so as to create as optimal a developmental environment as possible.

Three articles in this issue of Infants and Young Children IYC address this understanding. In one, family routines and rituals are examined as a set of interconnecting forces that can have enormous effects on child and family functioning, including a major role in guiding early intervention. In a second article, and at another level of interconnected forces, the possibility is explored that there exist certain critical or pivotal child behaviors. Discussion revolves around the argument that it is this class of child behaviors that should be the focus of intervention, and that these behaviors are closely associated with parent responsiveness. In a third article, it is pointed out clearly that unless there is a firm grasp of the full diversity of families involved, there is little hope that interventions will be incorporated effectively into child and family life. A focus on Latino families makes this most apparent.

Appropriate screening programs are also essential to our understanding of the interconnecting needs of families and children. One article in this issue described a process for infant mental health screening for Early Head Start programs. This process highlights again the complexities involved in screening, referral, and intervention. In addition, an innovative program for screening and referring children in neonatal infant care units and how it is tailored to the unique profiles of children and family needs is described with important systems wide implications. Finally, clinical efforts for other special populations, such as young children with feeding disorders, are presented in another article in this issue as is an early intervention model designed to improve the communication skills of young children with cleft lip andpalate.

Michael J. Guralnick, PhD

Editor, Infants & Young Children