The Florida Senate

402.25  Infants and toddlers in state-funded education and care programs; brain development activities.--Each state-funded education and care program for children from birth to 5 years of age must provide activities to foster brain development in infants and toddlers. A program must provide an environment rich in language and music and filled with objects of various colors, shapes, textures, and sizes to stimulate visual, tactile, auditory, and linguistic senses in the children and must include classical music and at least 30 minutes of reading to the children each day. A program may be offered through an existing early childhood program such as Healthy Start, the Title I program, contracted or directly operated subsidized child care, the prekindergarten early intervention program, Florida First Start, the Head Start program, or a private child care program. A program must provide training for the infants' and toddlers' parents including direct dialogue and interaction between teachers and parents demonstrating the urgency of brain development in the first year of a child's life. Family day care centers are encouraged, but not required, to comply with this section.

History.--s. 1, ch. 98-70.