Introduction

Today, children are the most important national assets of any society, and determine the future of every nation. Thus, The development of children is an important determinant of health throughout life.

Today, various international and national laws have recognized and emphasized the necessity to pay attention to the rights and needs of children.

Legal basis for the justification of childrens rights has taken into account when it was included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

In this declaration, the need for special protection and care of mothers and children has been emphasized; and family has been known as the unit of society.

Subsequently, a special emphasis has been placed on the issue of child rights in the Declaration of Child Rights in 1959 and Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

It is worth mentioning that the Iranian government was annexed to the Convention on the Rights of the Child by virtue of a single article which was enacted by the Islamic Consultative Assembly in Esfand 1, 1372, and was confirmed by the Guardian Council in Esfand 11 of that year.

On the other hand, the “World Conference on Education for All”, which was held in March 1992 and our country was its member, has taken a major step in advancing the programs related to young children by generalizing the concept of "primary education" to the learning needs in the first years of life and even the need to learn from birth.

At this conference, the growth and development of young children was recognized as the foundation for effective learning and social participation in the later years of life.

However, before it, the Law on Compulsory Primary and Guidance Education, enacted in 03.29..1350, and the Law of Equipment and Facilities to Provide Education of Iranian Children and Adolescents, enacted in 05.22.1353 in our country stipulated also similar contents: "every child needs to learn literacy; and parents have not the right to deprive children and young people of the blessings of literacy, reading and writing, and also learning of science and technology".

In our constitution, special attention was also paid to the importance of family and the woman as mother.

Today, the real importance of a stage of human development, called “childhood”, is generally agreed between researchers. Also, the need to meet the developmental needs of young children (from conception to age 8) is emphasized in a comprehensive and holistic manner (motor, sensory, mental, behavioral, speech and language, emotional-emotional, social and spiritual), instead of a separate approach with different aspects of growth and development.

The importance of early years of life has been known for many years to achieve maximum growth and all-round development of each individual. In fact, most of neural pathways in the brain, which are necessary for learning and balanced performance of the individual, are made and completed in this very sensitive period of life, i.e., from birth until the age of three years. So, natural and healthy evolution in the early years of life forms the basis of a flourishing life for human.

In other words, the first three years of the child’s life can be considered as an important time for brain development and therefore an opportunity to optimize his/her evolution from different aspects.

Studies have shown that physical and psychological-social experiences after birth as well as the constitutional factors (congenital and hereditary) are responsible for establishing communication between brain cells (synapses) that are essential to evolution; and postnatal brain development, school readiness, school success, health and welfare of person take place mainly under the influence of environmental stimuli.

Available evidence indicates that the childhood experiences, especially in the areas of cognitive and emotional-social development of children, have a profound and lasting influence on their health status, welfare and future success. For example, experiences such as the quality of relationships and communication with people who knew the language will cause the formation of the developing brain and child development. It will constitute the foundation of any process of his/her life.

In addition, early childhood experiences regarding family environment, kindergartens and schools will show how the emotional-social skills of the children are developed (e.g., controlling emotions, creating and caring positive friendships and coping (2) with their problems).

Furthermore, in this era of rapid brain development (i.e., the first years after birth), brain is affected by potential positive and negative environmental factors.

It means that the level of vulnerability to environmental damage is very high while there is an opportunity for his/her growth, development and optimization in these years.

In the second case, the affected children pass their problems to their children in adulthood; and finally, the cycle of intergenerational transmission of problems will continue.

It is only in the same years that the golden opportunity for primary or secondary preventive measures can be used, and after the age of three years, it would be very difficult to improve developmental delay.

Accordingly, studies in developed countries have a strong emphasis on long-term effects and benefits of early intervention programs for children with developmental disorders, some of which include:

·         achieving a higher level of intelligence;

·         Identifying a greater success in learning of language and mathematics;

·         More academic achievements which will reduce the need to repeat the grade, and to obtain higher degrees;

·         improving social skills such as social interaction and competitiveness,

·         higher quality of jobs and income levels;

·         Improving health status;

·         Reduction of social and health risk behaviors;

·         Reduction of mortality and disability

·         less dependence on welfare and support agencies;

·         Reduction of crime; and

·         Finally, improving economic production.

The above studies have also shown that investment in the programs of childrens natural evolution will lead to a compensation many times as large as the costs over time if the burden of chronic diseases and disabilities and also the costs of judicial and prison systems in the community are reduced and children become more healthy and productive adults that can play an important role in their community to improve social and economic conditions. In this case, the benefit to cost ratio of such interventions has always exceeded the number 1, even reaching up to 17.

Despite existing evidence suggesting that early intervention programs are effective in promoting child development and reducing the costs of programs, the professionals and small families in developing countries are generally less informed and therefore investment is insufficient for this purpose. One reason is that the long-term interests have not calculated and short term benefits of programs are simply evaluated.

Even in some states in the U.S, yet the amount of public expenditures for ages before age 5 is still much less than that for ages after the age of 5 years.

However, brain development of children in the age of 4-5 years reaches over 90 percent of its growth during the whole life.

Thus, as the result of the lack of adequate consideration to the early years of life, many children are experiencing delays in normal development, and will not be enough ready to start school.

Repetition of the grade constantly increases costs of education in the community in a significant way. Thus, they always cause the money to be insufficient to provide education and services for ages under school age.

In recent years, our country has achieved remarkable achievements in the field of child health in terms of reducing mortality and increasing coverage of various services (including breast feeding and vaccination) especially through health networks, and has also grown substantially in basic education.

However, the country is facing several serious challenges to adequately meet needs of children, especially vulnerable children.

On the one hand, due to the absence of a system approach to the macro-planning system in the country, so far services and research related to the development of young children in Iran are mainly designed and implemented in a scattered, non-coordinated, separate, and partial manner; and there are very small and limited coordination and joint planning between governmental and nongovernmental organizations and various relevant academic and executive sectors in this regard.

however due to lack of coordination between organizations, different problems and needs of children, and research separately are reviewed and studied by different organizations; and the resulting planning are inevitably designed and implemented together without logical connection, and are repeatedly faced with abundant duplications of work and gaps; while the natural development of children in every community requires an effective, coordinated and broad measure between various sectors.

On the other hand, lack of social awareness and spread knowledge of the relevant professionals has added to the difficulty and complexity of the issue.

The centers mission is to eliminate this serious deficit and to study and develop comprehensive programs (i.e. programs that include all the possible and relevant aspects, and lack relevant and unnecessary issues) in line with an ultimate goal and the national mission (i.e., promoting all-round development of Iranian children).

Therefore, we intended to take the first step in planning for future of this country by developing a five-year strategic plan for the center).

Pediatric Neurorehabilitation Research Center:

The importance of the early years of life in achieving maximum growth and development in a human being has been long known. In fact, most neural pathways of the brain develop from the embryonic stage to three years of age. So, normal and healthy development in the early years of life will flourish the path of one’s life.

The Pediatric Neurorehabilitation Research Center (PNRC) was formally established in 2008 under the authority and supervision of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, in Tehran. Actually, this research center consists of more than 22 full-time or part-time academic or non-academic researchers from different disciplines. The aim of the PNRC is to produce genuine knowledge through research, in order to finally affect the comprehensive promotion of development in all children, including children vulnerable to different developmental disorders.

Our mission:

• To increase our share in knowledge production in the field of early childhood development (ECD) at national and international levels, by increasing the quantity and quality of epidemiologic as well as experimental research in this area.
• To increase our share in decision-making and policy- making at the university level and also at the national and regional level in the field of early childhood development.
• To increase our share in the country’s health-care system reform.
• To train efficient researchers, expert in the field of pediatric neuro- rehabilitation and early childhood development.
• Scientific cooperation with other countries and international organizations.