The pilot sought to establish if children who were born in adverse circumstances (e.g. mothers with pre-eclampsia, low birthweight for gestational age, birth trauma) were faring as well as their counterparts who were not born in adverse circumstances. Phil Silva was invited to design and carry out the developmental and psychological assessment in collaboration with personnel from paediatrics, obstetrics, and psychology. This focus on vulnerability around birth and shortly thereafter was partly motivated by the increased sophistication of birth technologies during the 1960s which had resulted in more babies surviving than ever before. A great deal was learned from this early pilot study, not only in terms of the technical and practical aspects of conducting prospective research, but also in terms of substantive findings showing higher than expected rates for some child health problems (e.g. otitis media with effusion a.k.a glue ear), and several publications followed [2, 3].
