The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of home-mother care and day care caregiver behaviors on the adaptive behavior development of infants between 18 and 24 months of age. Other variables under investigation included two indices of socioeconomic status: occupation and education of parents. The sample consisted of 72 children. Adaptive behavior development was measured with the revised Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (Sparrow, Balla, and Cicchetti, 1984). Growth-facilitating behaviors of mothers and child caregivers were measured with the Family Daycare Rating Scale (Harms and Clifford, 1984). A 3 X 2 analysis of variance was used with two levels for caregivers-mothers and three levels of care: child in home; child in day care where caregivers show high frequency of growth-facilitating behavior; and child in day care where caregivers show low frequency of growth-facilitating behavior. Results revealed higher adaptive behavior composite scores for children in home care and for day care children of mothers with higher growth-facilitating behaviors. Means of home care children on adaptive behavior composite scores were higher than those of day care children. Results also suggested that the educational level of parents and the exhibition of growth-facilitating behaviors positively covary. Eighteen references are listed. (RH)