[1] He developed early intervention programs with what he called a "therapeutic curriculum", which aimed to specifically address the deficient experiences of children living in deprived environments.
[2] He believed that such environments put children at a disadvantage with respect to beginning school and acquiring basic literacy skills.
In the program, Deutsch aimed to give children early exposures to experiences in which they had been lacking, such as music and books.
[7] A 1964 article in Life described the program as "the first scientific and concerted attempt by any public school system to confront the problem of educating poor preschool children.
[8] Deutsch was an early critic of Arthur Jensen's controversial essay How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?, published in the Harvard Educational Review in 1969.