The major purpose of this report is to analyze early childhood research supported by the member agencies of the Interagency Panel on Early Childhood Research and Development during the most recent fiscal year, in order to chart the directions in which federal research programs are moving, both within individual agencies and within the federal government as a whole. Chapter I reviews the history, operational structure and fiscal year 1977 activities of the Panel. Chapter II describes the Panel's new organizational theme, "child development and the family," and identifies four perspectives (developmental, ecological, preventive, and strength-oriented) for future attention. Chapter III examines the combined research of all the agencies, presenting information on the number of projects and amount of funding in selected categories of research; these categories pertain to major areas of research (e.g., cognitive growth and development, the family, educational services), major kinds of research (e.g., basic, applied, evaluation), and research target groups (e.g., by age, socioeconomic status and race). Changes from fiscal year 1976 to fiscal year 1977 in levels of activity in these categories are briefly examined. In Chapter IV similar kinds of analyses are presented separately for each agency. Appendices include a chart of agency plans for research on children in 1978, a membership list, and a bibliography of documents prepared for the Interagency Panels on Early Childhood and Adolescence Research and Development. (Author/CM)