Black – ECD as equalizer

Early child development is sometimes referred to as the great equalizer. And that’s because by providing children these opportunities very early in life to explore, to learn and to be engaged in give and take in speaking, in playing and having the social interaction that comes back from a parent, from a caregiver, from another child, from a pet, is what forms children’s early brain connections and helps children learn how to negotiate. How to negotiate getting a toy, how to negotiate being hungry, eating, stopping, all of those come from these early experiences and often are gained through play. So that early child development is referred to as an equalizer because it enables children, whether they be from wealthy families or from low-income families, to have those experiences and to develop the equity aspects of early child development, and what that means is that all children, all children need opportunities for early development. That means they need opportunities for early learning and they need opportunities for responsive caregiving for social interactions. In – for some children, many children actually, those opportunities come at home and they may come from their childcare situations, so they don’t need a lot of intervention externally, or from government support for example. But we know that we have children who receive less of that for a whole variety of reasons. We have communities that are low-income, where parents are very busy working sometimes two jobs. And we know that we have children who are compromised, perhaps having vision problems or hearing problems or developmental problems, so in those cases we need a stronger dose of intervention. By having a stronger dose of intervention for children who are in more vulnerable circumstances, either because of the environment or because of a biological perhaps, insult to them, that’s where the equalizing comes in. So it means that everyone gets some aspects, some intervention, but those who need more receive more.