Children's Behaviour Lucy Mcmullan

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                      Children’s Behaviour                                 Lucy Mcmullan

The exercise of observing and assessing children formalises the link between theory and practice.

A great deal of observing a child today is focussed on what’s wrong with the child, and how we can intervene to help that particular child.

Early childhood specialist Carolyn Seefeldt agrees, ‘ observing is probably the oldest, most frequently used and most rewarding method of assessing children, their growth, development and learning.’ (A practical guide to child observation, Christine Hobart)  

It is important to know how to observe in order to collect the necessary data in the most useful, accurate and efficient way.

The value of carefully planned observation and assessment cannot be over emphasised.

Observing children helps the observer to get a true picture of the particular child’s development, any potential triggers and any incidents that may occur.

Observation also reduces the possibility of children being unfairly labelled, which can create its own set of problems.

In order for any observation to have any value, it is important that the observer is as objective as possible and that several observations take place. This is to ensure that the observation is fair and accurate. (B Tec Early Years Yvonne Nolan)

One particular observation technique commonly used to observe children is sociograms.

These are used either to indicate one particular child’s social relationships within a group, or to look at friendship patterns of all the children within a group.

Sometimes this highlights the unpopularity of a particular child and may motivate the placement setting to help the particular child to establish meaningful relationships.

There are various advantages of using this particular observation technique,

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. Can show quite clearly which children are most popular within a group

. Would indicate which children might need help in establishing relationships

. May make a placement more sensitive to changes within the social structure of a group.

Along with advantages are disadvantages,

. Relationships within the groups may change from day to day

. Too much could be read into the data

Overall the observation technique of sociograms can be a useful way of identifying popular children and those needing help to form relationships. Although this technique must be treated with caution as it can be misleading.

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