This special issue of the Infant Mental Health Journal presents highlights from The Sixth World Congress of the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) in Tampere, Finland, held July 1996. The choice of the invited contributions to this issue was made by the Program Committee and the guest editors of this issue with the excellent help of many reviewers. All papers were submitted and reviewed according to the standard procedures for the journal. The topic is the same one as the theme of the congress, chosen because it was felt that the time was right to encourage contributions that would consider knowledge for evaluating the outcomes of early intervention and infant research. The special subthemes cover theories of early intervention, techniques of early intervention in different situations, evaluating and follow-up on intervention, and how to learn and teach early intervention.
A successful intervention is one of the main goals of our work with infants and their families. What works, what is really successful, and how to achieve this goal are the reasons for the choice of this special topic. At the same time, it is recognized that often these outcomes are the most difficult parts of this work to measure. The general theme is a specific one and probably timely, as our field now is considered to have the experience and possibilities to evaluate the value and importance of therapeutical and other treatment effects from many different parts of the world in a variety of settings.
The submissions for this special issue were of an extraordinary high quality and some of the papers deal with new data and perspectives, such as interventions in autism and infancy and the diagnosis of precursors of conduct disorders, while others present the link between infant mental health issues and perinatal psychopathology and interventions. Also, the WAIMH new investigator award was established to recognize and encourage promising new investigators in infant mental health. The Award Committee, chaired by our President, Yvon Gauthier, chose Dr. Anne McDonald Culp as the first recipient for her paper "Parent Education/Home Visitation for First-Time Mothers.