By analogy, research suggests that training Child Development Associate (CDA) candidates to handle the complexity and autonomy of the early childhood teaching job is likely to have long range effects on the teacher and the early childhood education field. That is, a truly competent teacher behaves professionally and will become increasingly professional. Important indicators of competence and "professionalism" (such as self-directedness, playfulness, knowledge, flexibility, adaptability, social and communication skills, self-confidence, and a positive sense of self) are demonstrable within the CDA credentialing system, although the system focuses on lower level specific indicators. However, while CDA behavioral competencies, as observed in the classroom and documented in the CDA portfolio, have content validity, their concurrent and predictive validity is less clear. Few studies have related the CDA competencies to differences in the performance of CDA and non-CDA trained teachers. Even fewer studies have related the specific CDA functional areas to child outcomes. Findings of a study conducted by Ruopp and others identified four general competency factors based on the original 13 CDA functional areas; these four factors were significantly related to children's test score gains. The study therefore supports the thesis that a more general level and configuration of factors are more important to competency assessment and professionalism than are are the 6 competencies, the 13 functional areas, or their even more specific indicators. (RH)