the eppe study concluded that what parents do is much more important for children s development than who they are in terms of socioeconomic status education levels and racial and linguistic backgrounds when children s early development has not progressed well in the initial years ecec can be effective in helping children to get back on track in their development especially in key areas such as language in addition ecec can assist children to develop other key skills such as selfregulation empathy trust in others prosocial skills gross and fine motor skills and early numeracy oecd forthcoming