Edward Zigler

Edward Zigler was an American child development psychologist. He was professor emeritus at the Department of Psychology at Yale University, and was one of the principle architects of the US federal Head Start program and recipient of the 2008 APA Award For Outstanding Lifetime Contribution To Psychology) evaluated patterning as a treatment for retarded children.

He reveiwed the evidence for the efficacy of Doman-Delacato method of treating children with intellectual disabilities at The Institutes for The Achievement of Human Potential and concluded that no evidence was found for an improvement over that which would be expected of children given attention or that expected of any child as they mature; the patterning method cannot be recommended for seriously retarded children. Zigler wrote a 1981 editorial entitled "A plea to end the use of the patterning treatment for retarded children", which emphasized the harmful effect the treatment has by raising false hopes and increasing parental guilt. According to Edward Zigler and Robert Hodapp, in their book Understanding Mental Retardation, the Doman-Delacato method has major flaws:

In 1979 he was awarded the G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Psychology