Early Child Development is a field in development. We all know and every year are growing in our knowledge in how important the early years of children are for the rest of their life. But that doesn't make it easy to say what sort of policies there should be made for this period. There is a broad agreement that a rich, positive environment with a healthy food and a good house is very fundamental for children. But we also know that just 15 minutes more sleep for children makes a big difference in their iq development. So there aren't easy developmental factors.

Questions to address within ECD policies are: when does school age maturity starts and what does that mean for the structure and concept of ECD programs. In northern countries like Finland they think around 7 years old, in other countries already with 4 years old; should it be targeted only at at risk groups (and if so how do we define them and how are these be selected) or should it be integral; should the developmental support be single side directed towards cognitive/language development or towards the integral development; should parents be at the centre of support or insititutions (because it seems to be to expensive to work with every parent); do we base our curriculair support program on short term input/throughput and developmental results or on longitudinal insights in development.

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