Joseph Sparling, Ph.D., is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne (Australia) and a Fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina. Professor Sparling's 50-year career has been focused on bringing educational opportunities to needy families with children from birth though age 5. With Professor Craig Ramey, he developed an early educational program known as the Abecedarian Approach.