Improving Early Childhood Development

Enabling young children to achieve their full developmental potential is a human right and an essential requisite for sustainable development. Given the critical importance of enabling children to make the best start in life, the health sector, among other sectors, has an important role and responsibility to support nurturing care for early childhood development. This guideline provides direction for strengthening policies and programmes to better address early childhood development. It is primarily the family who provides the nurturing care that children need to develop in the earliest years. Many parents and other caregivers need support to put this into practice. Therefore, the guideline contains four recommendations aimed at caregivers, health professionals and other workers who can assist them, as well as policy-makers and other stakeholders. The recommendations relate to i) providing responsive care and activities for early learning during the first 3 years of life; ii) including responsive care and early learning as part of interventions for optimal nutrition of infants and young children; and iii) integrating psychosocial interventions to support maternal mental health into early childhood health and development services.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Early childhood development refers to the skills that children acquire within their first five years of life, which lay the foundation for future learning. Children need care and support to stimulate their growth and healthy development. The stimulation of language, understanding, personal, social and motor skills of the child are important at an early age and it is one of the primary physicians’ responsibilities to give proper advice to parents on how to promote their children’s physical and mental development. Enhancing Early Child Development: A Handbook for Clinicians is a quick reference guide for pediatricians, clinicians, and pediatric nurse practitioners that aims at promoting early stimulation and intervention for optimizing development of normal children as well as children with cerebral palsy and autism. Designed to be used in daily practice, this book will provide counsel for clinicians, parents and caregivers and advise them on the appropriate methods to enhance their child’s development at different ages based on their health condition. In addition, Enhancing Early Child Development: A Handbook for Clinicians, incorporates a summary of the manual entitled "Counsel the Family on Care for Child Development" developed by UNICEF and WHO, which addresses child development in low resource countries.

Enabling young children to achieve their full developmental potential is a human right and an essential requisite for sustainable development. Given the critical importance of enabling children to make the best start in life, the health sector, among other sectors, has an important role and responsibility to support nurturing care for early childhood development. This guideline provides direction for strengthening policies and programmes to better address early childhood development.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings offer an opportunity to provide children with a solid beginning in all areas of their development. The quality and efficacy of these settings depend largely on the individuals within the ECCE workforce. Policy makers need a complete picture of ECCE teachers and caregivers in order to tackle the persistent challenges facing this workforce. The IOM and the National Research Council hosted a workshop to describe the ECCE workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.

Summary of the WHO guideline that summarises the evidence and recommendations for interventions to improve early child development. Until now WHO has not had guidelines specifically on improving early childhood development (ECD). Existing WHO guidelines related to infant and child nutrition; injury prevention and support for children with disabilities; violence prevention; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); neonatal care; non-communicable diseases; and the prevention and treatment of specific young child illnesses, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, refer to the importance of respective interventions for ECD. However, they do not address ECD-specific interventions such as those related to responsive caregiving and early learning.

Presents the latest research on the cognitive, socio-emotional, physical, and linguistic development of children in settings such as homes, community-based centrs, health facilities, and school. This multi-volume publication highlights a range of topics such as cognitive development, parental involvement, and school readiness.