Contributors at the event, organised by the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, spoke out against what they view as 'damaging myths' about children and parenting.
One was John T Bruer, author of the book The Myth of the First Three Years. He said, 'There is nothing wrong with attempts to improve parenting, childcare and social policy through appropriate use of the natural and social sciences. We should look for every opportunity to do so. What we should avoid, however, is selective appeals to science to rationalise what may be only our own preconceived policy ends. This is politics disguised as science.'
Mr Bruer is among commentators arguing that there is no real scientific basis for early intervention and that parents should not be made to feel guilty for decisions they make, such as mothers returning to work and putting their children in nursery.
Dr Ellie Lee, the Centre's director, said there was a culture that was determined to 'professionalise' parenting.
'Our culture and politics is now very strongly influenced by certain notions about the development of small children's brains and related ideas about the need to intervene in the practices of parents,' she said. 'The claim is repeated over and over that "the evidence shows" that we have to intervene more in the early years.'
Psychologist Dr Stuart Derbyshire from Birmingham University, who spoke at the conference, told Nursery World, 'There is a perception that the first five years are absolutely critical, and children are doomed to fail' if parents don't get it right.
He said that politicians such as Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith had extrapolated findings from research, which includes the experience of children in Romanian orphanages, for example, to justify early intervention.
But this was misleading, he said, because it was 'no surprise' that children who 'are severely institutionalised in abhorrent conditions will have cognitive deficits later in life'.
He added, 'Apart from situations of sustained or gross neglect, neuroscience provides no evidence of an early environment causing detrimental brain development and preventing educational attainment or causing poverty or crime.'
Dr Derbyshire also spoke up for families, saying that research shows that daycare has 'a host of effects, negative and positive' and that what was important was that families should make decisions 'based on what is best for them.'
Children's brains were 'not going to be damaged by watching too much TV, eating the wrong food or not being read to enough'.
Dr David Whitebread, developmental cognitive psychologist and early years specialist at Cambridge University, agreed with John Bruer's view about the existence of 'neuromyths', but said that, 'to use the current limitations and over-interpretations of neuroscience to dismiss all scientific study of factors impacting on children's development is highly misleading'.
He said, 'We do have a good body of evidence from social science research to suggest that children's experiences in the first few years can have significant long-term effects on their academic success and life chances.
'The High/Scope studies from the US and the EPPE study in the UK have both shown that good-quality nursery education, for example, is associated with various measures of academic and social/emotional development. We also have a body of research indicating that the quality of early child-parent relationships impacts on children's early emotional and cognitive self-regulation, which is now clearly recognised as a key determinant of success at school and emotional well-being.'
- Read Dr Whitebread's comments in full here.
