This descriptive study of the developmental characteristics of urban children, most of whom were black, was a pilot study designed to take a broad overview of agency foster children as compared with children who had been cared for by a grandparent (usually the grandmother) and children cared for by their parents. In this comparison, the agency foster child was disadvantaged in all areas examined; neurologic, psychologic, hearing, language and speech from birth through 7-8 years. By the age of seven years, four of every ten foster children were evaluated as either suspect or abnormal neurologically. On neonatal, first year and seventh year examinations 61% of the family group, 49% of the children living with their grandparents and only 40% of the foster children were described as normal. These differences give rise to the hypothesis that imperfections of children contribute to the decision to seek an alternative type of caretaker: in this case, foster parents or grandparents. Since six of the children in the foster group fared as well as or better than the children in the other two groups, additional research is indicated. It would be of particular importance to gain understanding of the ecological variables which relate to satisfactory or superior performance by foster children and the underlying biosocial risk factors, during the prenatal and early childhood periods, which relate to inadequate performance. (Author/RH)