Tested the hypothesis that the amount of verbal interaction with caregivers would be a salient index of daycare center quality, in that it would be a particularly important determinant of children's ...language skill. 166 36-68 mo old children and their parents from 9 daycare centers participated in this study. Quality of the daycare environment, as assessed by observation and items from the Day Care Environment Inventory, was predictive of all 4 measures of intellectual and language development, which included the PPVT and Preschool Language Assessment Instrument, after controlling for family background and current center care experience. The importance of verbal interaction with caregivers was also demonstrated. Ss from centers with high levels of caregiver speech performed better on tests of language development than Ss from centers with a high level of peer speech. The predictive power of other environmental variables was also investigated. (42 ref)
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