The center-based infant-toddler CDA, awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition, is earned through a three-step process: prepare with 120 hours of professional education across eight subject areas, 480 hours of experience with children from birth through 36 months, and a Professional Portfolio; apply online through YourCouncil; then demonstrate competence on the 65-question CDA Exam and, where required, a Verification Visit. This guide walks each step. PassProfessor’s companion program is in the works.
This program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog — join the notify list and we’ll email you when enrollment opens.
The companion program is in the works, built on the Council’s Competency Standards for the infant-toddler setting. Join the notify list and you will be emailed when enrollment opens. Until then, this guide gives preparation a structure worth starting now, because the infant-toddler CDA is decided on evidence gathered where the children are — in feeding chairs, on floor mats, at the changing table — long before it is decided at a test center. The candidate’s craft is responsive caregiving with children who communicate in cues before they communicate in words, and every part of this assessment, from portfolio to observation, is designed to surface whether that craft is real.
Hold one distinction from the first page. This is not a written-exam-only credential. A candidate earns it through a documented case: education hours that can be verified, experience hours worked with actual infants and toddlers, a portfolio that argues competence in the candidate’s own words, an examination of professional judgement, and — where the Council requires one — a visit in which a specialist observes the candidate’s actual practice with an actual small group. The exam matters, and under the Council’s current decision process its result can change what else is required, but it is one source of evidence among several, and the sections below are ordered the way the Council builds the case.
Which credential is this?
The Child Development Associate credential in the center-based infant-toddler setting, in the CDA National Credentialing Program of the Council for Professional Recognition. The Council assesses candidates using multiple sources of evidence, including an exam, observation, and a professional portfolio with resources and competency statements prepared by the candidate. The setting is defined narrowly, and the narrowness is the point. A center-based program has at least ten children enrolled in the program and at least two caregivers working with the children on a regular basis; the infant-toddler setting is a state-licensed or legally exempt child development center where the candidate can be observed working with a group of at least three children, all aged birth through 36 months. A candidate whose observed group is aged 3 through 5, or mixed-age in a home, or served in families’ own homes, belongs to a different CDA setting with its own Competency Standards book. Two clarifications belong at the front. This CDA is the Council’s Child Development Associate; it is not DANB’s Certified Dental Assistant, a dental credential from a different body that shares only the abbreviation. And the CDA is a credential, not a course: the 120 hours of professional education are one eligibility input, and a college child development course — PassProfessor’s decided college course of that name included, as a product type — is a different thing from this assessment program.
The credential at a glance
| Fact of record | Detail |
|---|---|
| Credential and body | Child Development Associate (CDA) — Center-Based Infant-Toddler; Council for Professional Recognition, CDA National Credentialing Program |
| Setting test | Center-based program (at least 10 children enrolled; at least two caregivers regularly); observed group of at least three children, all aged birth through 36 months; state-licensed or legally exempt center |
| Education | High school diploma or GED, or junior/senior enrollment in a high school early childhood career and technical program; plus 120 clock hours of formal training with at least 10 hours in each of the eight subject areas, any time before applying |
| Experience | 480 hours of professional work experience with children aged birth through 36 months in the setting, within the 3 years before applying; paid or volunteer |
| Portfolio | Within the 6 months before applying, per the Infant-Toddler edition of the Competency Standards book: education documentation, Family Questionnaires, ten-resource Resource Collection, six Reflective Statements of Competence, Professional Philosophy Statement |
| Application | Select a PD Specialist in YourCouncil, then apply online through YourCouncil; Council application fee $525 (third-party; non-refundable, non-transferable) |
| Exam | 65 multiple-choice questions at a Pearson VUE test center, scheduled after application approval on the first Ready to Schedule notice |
| Visit | Verification Visit by the PD Specialist where the Council requires one, scheduled on the second Ready to Schedule notice after the exam: portfolio review, observation of the candidate with the children, reflective dialogue |
| Decision and currency | Council renders the credentialing decision on the full record; credential valid three years from award; renewal fee $250 (third-party) |
The three steps, as the Council publishes them
Step one — Prepare. Meet the eligibility requirements and assemble the documentation: the education hours and their official records, the experience hours in the setting, and the Professional Portfolio prepared inside its six-month window. The Competency Standards book for the setting — the Infant-Toddler edition — is required equipment in the literal sense: the Council requires candidates to purchase the setting-specific book before applying and to have it during the Verification Visit, and its instructions govern the portfolio’s contents.
Step two — Apply. Select a CDA Professional Development Specialist through YourCouncil and obtain the specialist’s agreement and identification number, which the application requires. Then submit the completed application online through YourCouncil with the Council’s fee in full.
Step three — Demonstrate, then the decision. After approval, the first Ready to Schedule notice authorizes the CDA Exam at a Pearson VUE test center; results are submitted electronically to the Council by the testing center. Only after the exam is the candidate eligible to schedule the Verification Visit, under the second Ready to Schedule notice. The Council’s enhanced credentialing decision process, in effect since February 2, 2026, adds the branching rule: a candidate who demonstrates the qualifying level of competence on the exam, and who has met every other requirement, may receive a credentialing decision without a Verification Visit, with the portfolio reviewed by the Council; a candidate who does not reach that level completes the full process, including the Verification Visit, before a decision is made. The Council keeps the qualifying criteria inside its proprietary credentialing framework and publishes no numeric score for it, so no figure appears in this guide. Where a visit occurs, the PD Specialist submits score recommendations, and the Council reviews the full record and renders the decision — award, with a digital certificate and badge delivered through the Council’s credential partner, or denial with recommendations on areas of improvement and the next steps to appeal or reapply.
Eligibility in detail
The education baseline is a high school diploma or GED, with one stated alternative: enrollment as a junior or senior in a high school career and technical program in early childhood education. The professional education requirement is 120 clock hours of formal early childhood education training, with no fewer than 10 training hours in each of the eight CDA subject areas: planning a safe and healthy learning environment; advancing children’s physical and intellectual development; supporting children’s social and emotional development; building productive relationships with families; managing an effective program operation; maintaining a commitment to professionalism; observing and recording children’s behavior; and understanding principles of child development and learning. The Council’s general eligibility guidance frames the training as covering the growth and development of children ages birth to 5; candidates building an infant-toddler case do their strongest work when as much of that training as possible speaks directly to the first three years, since the portfolio and the observation will both be judged in a birth-through-36-months room.
Documentation discipline decides whether hours count. Training may come from one agency or several, for credit or noncredit, but it must be earned through an agency or organization with expertise in early childhood teacher preparation; the Council does not accept training provided by individual consultants or from conference workshops for an initial application. Verification must come as an official transcript, a certificate of training, or a letter on the agency’s official letterhead, carrying the agency’s name, address, and logo, the course names, the subject area of the training, the candidate’s name, the hours or credits awarded, the training dates, and the instructor’s official signature — with the ages covered stated where a course name has no age reference. Audit certificates against that list early, while the issuing agency can still repair an omission.
The experience requirement is 480 hours of professional work experience with children of the correct age for the setting — here, birth through 36 months — obtained within the three years before the application is submitted. Paid and volunteer hours both count. The Council’s guidance lists settings that do not count toward the hours — babysitting, before- and after-school programs, Sunday school programs, and drop-in programs — because competence around the standards cannot be demonstrated in them. Candidates should also make their experience broad across the setting’s span where their program allows it: a candidate whose hours sit entirely with older toddlers carries a thinner case on young-infant care than one whose work crosses the room’s full age range, and the reflective statements will have to speak to the whole span either way.
Subject areas versus standards
The Council runs two frameworks in parallel, and preparation fails when they are merged. The eight subject areas govern the 120 training hours — a curriculum map with a 10-hour floor in each area, so no candidate arrives with rich activity training and no observation training at all. The six Competency Standards govern the demonstration — the goals against which the portfolio statements are written, the exam samples judgement, and the PD Specialist records observation evidence, each goal carried by its Functional Areas, thirteen in total. Training answers “what have you studied, across the whole field?” The standards answer “what can you do, observably, with infants, toddlers, and their families?” Audit the training file against the first question and the portfolio and practice against the second.
The Competency Standards, one by one
I — Safe, healthy learning environment (Safe; Healthy; Learning Environment)
In this setting the candidate provides a safe environment for children who explore by crawling, mouthing, and falling; promotes health and nutrition and prevents the spread of illness in a room where everything is shared and nothing is washed by the children themselves; and prepares a responsive, secure environment that supports exploration at the child’s level. The assessed detail is concrete: safe sleep practice, feeding hygiene, diapering sanitation, material selection for children who will taste every object, and supervision that anticipates rather than reacts. Study this standard as a room-and-routine audit performed at floor height.
II — Physical and intellectual competence (Physical; Cognitive; Communication; Creative)
Physical development here is emergence in sequence — head control, rolling, sitting, pulling to stand, first steps, climbing, running — and the candidate advances it by providing the surfaces, supports, and unhurried time each stage needs. Cognitive competence is sensory investigation: the infant who drops the spoon forty times is conducting the experiment, and the candidate’s role is to keep the experiment supplied and narrated. Communication begins pre-verbally, in gaze, gesture, babble, and cry, and the candidate supports children to understand, acquire, and use communication by answering those early forms as real messages and by surrounding children with talk, song, and the beginnings of books. Creative opportunity is sensory play — sound, rhythm, texture, and movement offered without a product in mind.
III — Social and emotional development and positive guidance (Self; Social; Guidance)
The foundation is attachment: each child needs physical and emotional security with known, consistent caregivers before any social learning can stand on it. Self, in this span, is the toddler’s dawning autonomy — the insistence on doing it alone that a skilled caregiver protects rather than battles. Social is the first toleration and then enjoyment of peers, running alongside the parallel play of the second year. Guidance under three is almost entirely preventive and environmental: predictable routines, duplicated favourite materials, feelings named by a calm adult, and redirection offered early. Reflective statements that carry weight in this standard reason from a specific child’s pattern — what the behaviour communicated, what the candidate changed in the environment or routine, and what shifted.
IV — Positive and productive relationships with families (Families)
Families of infants and toddlers are partners in a care plan that changes monthly: feeding, sleep, soothing, and first milestones are negotiated knowledge, not intake paperwork. The candidate works in partnership with each family, keeps communication open and daily where the setting allows, respects the family’s goals and practices for their child, and supports the family’s own growth. The portfolio’s Family Questionnaires give this standard its direct evidence — the families report on the partnership themselves — so distribute them early inside the six-month window and treat what returns as material to reflect on, not merely to file.
V — A well-run, purposeful program (Program Management)
In an infant-toddler room, management is continuity. Individual care plans, feeding and rest records, diapering and observation notes, and planning that follows each child’s current stage are what allow a second caregiver to pick up the record and provide the same care. The candidate who keeps records a colleague can actually use — current, specific, legible in intent — is demonstrating this standard, and the exam’s program-operation material samples exactly that judgement.
VI — Commitment to professionalism (Professionalism)
The candidate decides from knowledge of how children develop in the first three years, stays current in the field, and upholds high-quality care for the youngest children. The Professional Philosophy Statement anchors this standard in the portfolio: an account, in the candidate’s own voice, of how infants and toddlers learn and what the caregiver owes them. Assessors read the philosophy against the rest of the record; a philosophy of responsive, relationship-based care that the observed practice confirms is the strongest version of this evidence.
The Professional Portfolio, component by component
The portfolio is compiled independently by each candidate, prepared within the six months before applying, and reviewed by the PD Specialist at the visit, or by the Council where the enhanced process routes the decision without a visit. Its components are education documentation; Family Questionnaires; the Resource Collection; the six Reflective Statements of Competence; and the Professional Philosophy Statement. The Resource Collection holds ten resources gathered for the Competency Goals as the Infant-Toddler edition of the Competency Standards book directs — the references, materials, and community resources the candidate actually uses with this age group. The Reflective Statements are the writing core: one per standard, reflecting on the candidate’s own practice. Two working rules produce statements that hold up in this setting. Write from observation, not adjectives: a statement anchored in what a specific infant’s cues showed, what the candidate did, and what the child did next can be assessed, while a statement of general warmth cannot. And write each statement against its standard’s Functional Areas, checking visible coverage, because the review reads statements as evidence mapped to those areas.
The CDA Exam, accurately framed
The exam is a computer-based test of 65 multiple-choice questions, delivered by Pearson VUE — the Council’s testing partner — at test centers around the country, and scheduled after the application is approved and the first Ready to Schedule notice arrives. Its scenarios are rooted in practice with young children, and in this setting they turn on developmental judgement: what a cue means, what a stage needs next, which response protects both safety and attachment. Three framing facts keep expectations honest. The exam is necessary but not sufficient — no exam result by itself awards the credential, because the Council decides on the full record. The Council publishes no numeric passing score for candidates in its current materials; under the enhanced process the operative concept is the qualifying level of competence on the exam, held inside the Council’s proprietary framework, so any source quoting a percentage pass mark for the current exam is describing something the Council has not published. And the exam comes first in the demonstration sequence, with its result determining whether the route continues to a Verification Visit — a reason to sit it with preparation complete rather than as an early rehearsal.
The Verification Visit and the R.O.R. Model
Where a visit is required, the PD Specialist the candidate selected before applying conducts it in the candidate’s own room, with the candidate’s own small group. The Council structures the visit as the R.O.R. Model — Review, Observe, Reflect. In Review, the specialist examines the portfolio, the training transcripts and certificates, and the Family Questionnaires. In Observe, the specialist watches the candidate working with the infants and toddlers and records criterion evidence against the Functional Areas — and in this setting that means the care routines themselves: arrivals, feeding, diapering, floor play, and settling to sleep are the observation’s content, not interruptions to it. In Reflect, specialist and candidate hold a reflective dialogue on the strengths and areas of growth found in the portfolio, seen in the observation, or identified in the Family Questionnaires. The specialist then submits the candidate’s scores electronically to the Council. Preparation for the visit is therefore mostly preparation of the ordinary: a room and a routine that already run the way the standards describe, and a candidate ready to discuss their own practice honestly.
A sequenced preparation plan
Phase one — audit. Test the setting: observed group, ages, center definition. Audit training hours by subject area against the 10-hour floors, with documentation checked element by element; count experience hours inside the three-year window and note where they sit across the birth-through-36-months span.
Phase two — train and observe. Complete missing subject-area hours, favouring training that speaks to the first three years. Build the observation habit the standards assume: short, dated notes on individual children’s cues, stages, and responses, kept as a working record. Work the standards in rotation against live practice — room audit against Standard I, developmental sequences against Standard II, guidance reasoning against Standard III.
Phase three — write the portfolio, inside the six-month window. Distribute Family Questionnaires early. Draft the six Reflective Statements from observation episodes, map each against its Functional Areas, and draft the philosophy statement last. Assemble the Resource Collection from materials genuinely in use, and the education documentation in the Council’s required form.
Phase four — apply and demonstrate. Select the PD Specialist, submit the application through YourCouncil with the fee, and sit the exam on the first Ready to Schedule notice with timed practice behind you. If a visit follows, prepare continuity, not theatre: the record and the room as they run on the candidate’s best ordinary week.
Common mistakes in this credential
One: applying in the wrong setting — a candidate whose observed group is not at least three children all aged birth through 36 months in a center is not an infant-toddler candidate, however their job is titled. Two: banking training hours that fail the documentation rules — hours from an individual consultant, or certificates missing subject area, dates, or signature. Three: writing reflective statements about infants and toddlers in general rather than about observed individual children in the candidate’s own room. Four: treating guidance as a discipline system for children who are not yet verbal, in statements or in practice, when the standard defines it as environment, routine, and calm adult response. Five: treating the exam as the credential — relaxing after it while the portfolio review and any required visit remain, with the Council’s decision still to come on the whole record.
Frequently asked questions
What are the three steps to the infant-toddler CDA? Prepare, apply, and demonstrate, in the Council’s own framing: meet the education and experience requirements and prepare the Professional Portfolio; apply online through YourCouncil with the Council’s fee after selecting a PD Specialist; then take the CDA Exam and, where the Council requires one, complete the Verification Visit, after which the Council renders its decision.
How many questions are on the CDA Exam? The CDA Exam has 65 multiple-choice questions, delivered by computer at a Pearson VUE test center. It is scheduled only after the Council approves the application and issues the Ready to Schedule notice.
What score passes the CDA Exam? The Council does not publish a numeric passing score for the exam in its current candidate materials. Under the enhanced credentialing decision process, the operative standard is the Council’s qualifying level of competence on the exam, inside the Council’s proprietary framework; reaching it, with all other requirements met, can lead to a decision without a Verification Visit, and not reaching it routes the candidate through the full process including the visit.
Is a Verification Visit always required? Not under the current process. Since February 2, 2026, candidates who demonstrate the qualifying level of competence on the CDA Exam and meet all other requirements may receive a decision without a visit, with the Council reviewing the portfolio. All other candidates complete the Verification Visit with their PD Specialist before a decision.
What are the eight subject areas for the 120 hours? Planning a safe and healthy learning environment; advancing children’s physical and intellectual development; supporting children’s social and emotional development; building productive relationships with families; managing an effective program operation; maintaining a commitment to professionalism; observing and recording children’s behavior; and understanding principles of child development and learning — at least 10 of the 120 hours in each.
Can volunteer experience count toward the 480 hours? Yes. The Council counts paid or volunteer professional work experience, provided it is with children aged birth through 36 months in the setting and falls within the three years before applying. Babysitting, before- and after-school programs, Sunday school, and drop-in programs do not count, per the Council’s guidance.
Why is the observed group so small in this setting? Because the Council defines the infant-toddler setting by an observed group of at least three children aged birth through 36 months: competence here is individual, responsive care, and a specialist records that evidence with a small group in a center that itself enrolls at least ten children with at least two caregivers working regularly.
What does the credential cost at the Council? The Council’s application fee is $525, paid in full with the online application; it is a third-party fee to the Council for Professional Recognition, described by the Council as non-refundable and non-transferable. Renewal after three years carries the Council’s $250 renewal fee.
How is this CDA different from the dental CDA? Entirely. DANB’s Certified Dental Assistant credential belongs to dental assisting and is administered by the Dental Assisting National Board. This guide covers only the Council for Professional Recognition’s Child Development Associate credential for early childhood educators.
Does this program provide my 120 hours of training? No. PassProfessor’s program is preparation for the Council’s assessment. The 120 hours must be earned through an agency or organization with expertise in early childhood teacher preparation and documented as the Council requires; the Council states that it does not provide training itself and does not specifically endorse any training program.
When will the PassProfessor infant-toddler program open? The program is in the works and enrollment is not open yet. Join the notify list on this page or on the companion program page and you will be emailed when enrollment opens.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Council for Professional Recognition or Pearson VUE? No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Council for Professional Recognition or Pearson VUE. The Council owns the credential, the standards, and the credentialing decision.