KARACHI, Aug 7: Speakers at a symposium stressed that early childhood development was the make or break period in a person’s life that influenced the make up of the whole society.
The symposium on ‘Early Child Development Programmes: enabling evidence-based practice and policy,’ was organised under the Aga Khan University Human Development Programme on Monday.
In a presentation about the impact of ECD on human development, Dr Fraser Mustard, founding trustee of the Aga Khan University, warned against the consequences of poor investment in early childhood development.
He presented results of studies in areas of neuroscience, health, behaviour and literacy that proved a correlation of adverse early child development circumstances and common sociological and health problems like criminality, drug abuse, depression, coronary diseases, diabetes, obesity and blood pressure.
He described how improper progress could affect the expression of the genetic structure of a child resulting in dysfunction. Level of literacy, language skills and IQ were also set by the age of six, he pointed out.
Dr Mustard stressed that knowledge of brain development gave us an opportunity to establish prosperous, healthy, tolerant, pluralistic, sustainable, democratic societies with less violence. Failure to meet this gap, he emphasised, could put human civilisation at risk.
Dr Jim Irvine, former director of AKU-Human Development Programme, stressed that when early child development programmes addressed health, nutrition, stimulation and interaction in an integrated manner, there could be immediate benefits for children and their families that would continue through schooling into adult life.
Dr Irvine also urged the participants of the symposium to form viable partnerships; use realistic programming; and strive to reduce inequalities of access for disadvantaged children.
Dr Gulzar Kanji, visiting faculty of Aga Khan University, advised the participants to be cautious in research, asking if measures arising from studies in the richer world could be universally applied to all situations and contexts.
She urged that measures and studies took into account the wider cultural and linguistic contexts, the devastating impact of grinding poverty, and infections of epidemic proportions. She shared valuable research experiences from East Africa and Northern Pakistan.
Earlier AKU-HDP Acting Director Dr Camer Vellani welcomed over 150 participants from the region, and beyond, including Canada and Africa.—PPI