IMPACT OF INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS) ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF TRIBAL PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN

The present investigation aims at studying the impact of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) on language and cognitive development of tribal Pre - school children. The sample of the study c omprised of 600 children within 3 - 6 years age group, out of which 300 were attending Anganwadi / ICDS centres and another 300 were not attending such centres in tribal areas. The sample was selected randomly from ten blocks of Sundergarh District of Odisha . Tools such as Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM) 1962; Socio - Economic Status Scale by Srivastava, (1978); Developmental Checklist by Bluma et al. (1976) (Indian adaptation by Kohli (1987) and Activity Chart developed by the investigator were us ed for collection of data. The major findings of the study were: (i) ICDS programme had significant effect on language development of tribal pre - school children (ii) ICDS programme had significant effect on cognitive development of tribal pre - school childr en.