A 3-year experiment evaluated the effectiveness of the Pyramid program, an educational program for young children from deprived situations and based on two concepts: psychological nearness (principles of attachment theory) and psychological distance (derived from developmental distancing, or the growing ability of a child to comprehend that an object can be represented by something other than the concrete object itself). The Pyramid program uses thematic projects that are carried out cooperatively by a teacher and by tutors for low-scoring children. The aim is a high level of representation, and three intelligence areas are distinguished: emotional intelligence (socio-emotional development, personal development), cognitive intelligence (language and development of reading, thinking and development of mathematics, orientation in space and time), and motor intelligence (motor development, creative development). Parental involvement is also an important component. Comparison of children in the Pyramid program to a control group indicated that the Pyramid program, in which the distancing concept is the basis of thematic projects, is useful for preschool and primary school children; however, starting the program with 3-year-olds provided better results. A discussion of the "architecture" of the Pyramid concept is appended. (Contains 14 references.) (EV)