Milestones: birth to one year
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The infant’s main source of learning is to explore orally (with their mouth) throughout most of the first year.4
By about four months, recognition of an approaching feed is demonstrated by excited actions and squeals.4
By nine to 10 months, the infant understands that an object exists even if it has been covered up. For example, the child will pull a cover off a teddy that they have seen hidden, in order to ‘find’ it again.4
The understanding of simple instructions or statements begins from about nine months, and this is clearly evident by one year (e.g. ‘Wave bye-bye to Daddy’).Milestones: one to two years
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Toddlers of this age are very curious, and they investigate everything they can.4
They are interested in all that happens around them.4
A precise pincer grasp (index finger and thumb) is seen now.4
They enjoy putting objects into containers.4
They take toys to their mouth less often now.4
They enjoy activities that involve fitting objects together (e.g. simple construction toys or a ‘build-up’ clown).4
They will place an object on another – a two-object tower.Milestones: two to three years
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From two years, children rarely take toys to mouth.4
Brief imitation is seen of everyday activities (e.g. the feeding of a doll).link
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keyword PECSPicture Exchange Communication System, a system for signing language.
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They are usually content to play alone.4
Simple role play is demonstrated.4
They can build six to eight objects into a tower.4
They can follow simple instructions (e.g. ‘Fetch your shoes, please.’).4
They can complete simple jigsaw puzzles.4
They can draw vertical and horizontal lines.Milestones: three to five years
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Children of this age can usually draw a person with the main details.4
Role play is frequent and detailed by five years of age.4
Floor play is very complex (e.g. cars, train sets, farms).4
Understanding of time linked to routine is emerging; for example, they begin to understand that they will be picked up from pre-school after the singing has finished.Milestones: from five years onwards
From around age five, co-operative play becomes very involved, with
considerable role play requiring accuracy and detail. Much time is taken up in planning who will take on which role and who will do what. Children increasingly develop the skills to add up, subtract, put in order, and read and write. The basis of all these skills has been built through the activities supported by the
Foundation Stage curriculum.
31 Figure 1.18
A busy toddler
Examples of activities related to the Foundation Stage curriculum are set out in Unit 6, pages 000–000. You may find it helpful to refer to that section now.
Children now develop from Piaget’s pre-operational stage to the concrete operational concept of thinking. In addition to learning to read, they develop the ability to add up, subtract and order, as long as they can relate the problem to real events or objects.
For a description of Piaget’s pre-operational and concrete operational stages, see page 00.
By about the age of 11, an average child has a vocabulary of 11,000 to 12,000 words. Children of this age are usually fluent readers with substantial reading stamina. On the whole, girls tend to read more than boys.
Milestones: adolescents As children reach adolescence:
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The emphasis is on learning and developing career options for the future.4
Understanding of abstract concepts has developed.4
Colloquialisms and ‘peer’ talk are frequently displayed.4
Conflicts arise, particularly with parents and figures of authority.4
Family valuesare frequently challenged.4
Moral reasoning becomes important.4
More sophisticated problem-solving skills are required as greater independence is attained.Perception
Perceptionis the organisation and interpretation of information received from the senses; it helps us to understand what is happening both to us and around us. Certain conditions within us can influence our level of perception. For example, our brain may choose for us not to ‘see’ something that is likely to make us anxious and filters it out. Perception is also affected by selective attention, which occurs if we are fully focused on one thing and simply do not notice something else happening close by. Expectation also affects what we perceive. For example, two people will not necessarily see the same things when seemingly watching the same sequence of events. Their brains may have focused on slightly different aspects of what was in front of them.
Refer to Unit 7, page 000, for information on early sensory development. This will help you to understand the different sensory experiences that give us the feedback on which perception is based.
link link link
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keyword Valuesmoral standards.
keyword Perception the organisation and interpretation of information received from the sensory organs; gaining insight or awareness.
Perception in infants
Much research has been carried out into the perceptual abilities of young babies.
For example, Gibson and Walk (1960) devised a piece of equipment that they called a ‘visual cliff’ to investigate depth perception in infants. The infants were first placed on the ‘visually safe’ side of the table (a chequered floor) and were encouraged to crawl across the surface above the ‘visually unsafe’ cliff (clear glass) towards their mothers. Out of 27 infants aged six to 12 months (who had gained a degree of mobility), only three crawled across the surface. The
remaining 24 showed a marked reservation with regard to crossing from the
‘safe’ to the ‘unsafe’ area of the visual cliff’s surface, even though they would be moving towards their mothers, who would normally be a safe haven for them.
Under the age of six months, it is clearly not possible to investigate depth perception in the same way, owing to infants’ lack of mobility. However, Campos et al. (1970), monitored the heart rate of infants when placed first on one side, and then on the other of the visual cliff. At just 55 days (approximately eight weeks) the heart rates were different, indicating that even at this young age a degree of depth perception is present. Under eight weeks of age, depth perception did not appear to have developed.
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activity activity
(a) Look at the following illustrations. What do you see?
(b) Ask others what they see. Did they see the same as you, or different?
You will find that you can only see one image at a time, and may not see the second image until it is pointed out to you.
1.4 INDIVIDUAL WORK
Figure 1.19 Visual images
Refer to Unit 7, page 000, for more on infant perception.
Thinking
Many theorists have been interested in how children think and learn and the connection between the two. You will probably have heard of at least some of them. The following section will briefly outline the thoughts of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner.
Piaget (1896–1980)
Piaget believed that children’s interactions with their environment formed the basis of their development of thinking and problem-solving abilities. He proposed that there are four main stages of cognitive(intellectual) development:
1. sensorimotor stage (birth to two years)
2. pre-operational stage, divided into the pre-conceptual stage (two to four years), and the intuitive stage (four to seven years)
3. concrete operations stage (seven to 11 years) 4. formal operations stage (11 years onwards).
link
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Floor pattern seen through glass
Glass over patterned surface Figure 1.20
The visual cliff experiment by Gibson and Walk
keyword Cognitivedevelopment the development of knowledge through thinking and problem solving.
activity activity
(a) With a partner find out what you can about each of Piaget’s proposed stages.
(b) At which stage are the children at your placement?
1.5 PAIR WORK
Vygotsky (1896–1935)
Like Piaget, Vygotsky believed that children learn through active involvement. In addition, he considered the role of the adult to be especially important, with adult input being central to children’s learning. Vygotsky believed that children could often understand more than they demonstrate in free play. He suggested that they show greater understanding of some concepts if helped to try out new ideas by an adult, thereby achieving more through the involvement of a sensitive adult (one who supports, but does not direct or take over the planning, etc), than if left to play alone. The difference between the child’s actual development and the level that they could potentially achieve with additional support from the adult is called the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD); it is a well-known concept in early years work.
Refer to the target child observation on page 00. This gives a useful example of the ZPD.
Bruner (1931–)
Bruner, who was influenced by Vygotsky’s ideas, uses the term ‘scaffolding’ to describe how the adult supports the learning of the child by giving them manageable amounts of information, enabling them to solve a problem or to achieve more than they would otherwise have done. Bruner believes that scaffolding contributes to a child’s learning.
He considers that there are three modes (types) of thinking that develop sequentially in children:
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Enactive thinking. Information is recorded mentally and linked to physical activity; this type of thinking is mostly associated with infants under one year4
Iconic thinking. Mental images are linked to the senses; this type of thinking is mostly associated with children aged one to seven years.4
Symbolic thinking. A range of representative forms, such as language and number, are used to demonstrate learning. This type of thinking is mostly associated with children aged seven onwards.link
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activity activity
Can you think of an example for each of Bruner’s modes of thinking?
1.6 INDIVIDUAL WORK