The Executive Summary of the National Day Care Home Study (NDCHS) provides a synopsis of the findings from all NDCHS components including data on family day care providers, the children in their care, and the children's parents. The summary additionally presents information on the nature of the day care in each of the NDCHS settings and presents both cost and program data on family day care systems. After a brief introduction, Chapter One reports the characteristics of family day care providers. Chapter Two reports findings on the group composition of children in day care. Chapter Three describes the characteristics of parents of children in care. Findings from in-home observation of child/caregiver interactions are reported in Chapter Four. Chapter Five reports the costs of family day care and Chapter Six describes the 22 family day care systems studied during the NDCHS. Conclusions and recommendations are offered in the final chapter. (Author/RH)