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This study represents an initial effort to examine the bidirectional association between child-level early care and education (ECE) quality and toddlers’ language skills using a cross-lagged design. Participants were 87 children aged 2–3 years, enrolled in childcare centers in Eastern China. Child-level ECE quality and children’s language skills were assessed at two time points within a one-year childcare program. Cross-lagged analyses indicated a bidirectional pattern: domain-specific process quality predicted subsequent gains in expressive language, while children’s expressive language, in turn, predicted later improvements in general process quality. This study highlights the reciprocal effect between child-level ECE quality and child language development, offering new implications for quality theory, assessment, and intervention.
Zhao et al. (Sun,) studied this question.