Sec. 2. Findings and purposes
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Congress finds the following: The brain undergoes its most dramatic development during a child’s first 3 years of life, with 700 new neurological connections being formed every second based on early experience. During this time, the brain’s foundational capacities for thinking, language, emotion, and self-regulation are formed. Economic deprivation can also affect the development of the brain and impair all aspects of development. Children in families below the poverty line are at risk for prolonged toxic stress, which can change the shape of the brain’s structure.
Twenty-five percent of children younger than 3 years of age live in families with incomes below the poverty level. Child care is second only to the family setting as the place in which early development takes place for many infants and toddlers. Sixty-one percent of mothers with children younger than 3 years of age are in the labor force and over 6,000,000 children younger than 3 years of age are cared for by someone other than their parents for some part or all of the day. Therefore, the relationship between the child and the child care provider often plays a significant role in child development.
Research shows that high-quality child care can mitigate some of the effects of adverse experiences caused by poverty and that low-income children can benefit particularly well from high-quality child care. Yet, at-risk children younger than 3 years of age often receive low-quality child care that can lead to poor developmental outcomes. High-quality child care has been shown to promote positive cognitive, language, and social and emotional development, and contribute to academic success.
High-quality child care can also help improve a child’s communication skills, cognitive skills, behavioral skills, math and language assessment scores, and verbal intelligence. Providing training and technical assistance to family child care providers who are infant and toddler care providers, through family child care networks, has been shown to improve the quality of caregivers. Twenty-seven States use infant and toddler specialist networks as the structure for providing training and technical assistance, using research-based training and techniques such as mentoring and on-site coaching, to all types of providers of child care for infants or toddlers.
Preparation for early childhood educators often does not include training specific to infants and toddlers. Only 21 States have infant and toddler credential requirements that define the particular knowledge and skills needed to work with children younger than 3 years of age. Infants and toddlers have unique needs that differ from those of older children in areas such as health and safety, interaction with teachers and caregivers, and learning, yet not all States recognize those differences in licensing regulations or in their Quality Rating and Improvement Systems.
Just 20 States have infant and toddler quality indicators in their Quality Rating and Improvement Systems and only 3 States have separate categories of child care regulations related to infants and toddlers. The purpose of this Act is to improve the overall quality of child care programs serving infants or toddlers.