- Sorts animals into groups e.g. cows altogether, dogs’ altogether ECT.
(Lindon, J (2003) Child Care and Early Years Education, Thomson)
This aspect was not observed because small world toys needed for this aspect were unavailable at the time and date of the observation. Possibly I could try this aspect when the toys are available in order for me to see whether the child could complete this aspect and gain further knowledge of child A's developmental skills.
In order to help child A develop further I could provide her with the following activities and experiences which would beneficial for her intellectual development skills. These are all related to information collected during the observation and child A's own individual needs:
- Opportunities to measure out ingredients needed in order to bake a cake or cook a meal, at which time her understanding of different weights of food e.g. sugar is light.
- I would also suggest that the children play competitive games to see the difference in speed.
- Provide opportunities to discover different groups of animals helping to develop shape, size, noise ECT.
From carrying out this observation I have learnt:
- Children have concepts of everything and that they learn through their concepts. Their concepts start off very simple but as they develop these concepts become very complex. From this I learnt how child A was able to understand when she was going fast and when she was going slow other things that she used concepts for included lifting and pulling different weights also hot and cold at mealtimes. By knowing the child’s abilities with these concepts I can spend more time planning for those that she find harder to do and less on those that were not so difficult for her.
- How to plan for the development of child A's concepts by looking at where she fitted in with the age related milestones and where she didn't. From this information I was able to make recommendations that could promote her development.
- To keep child A's individual needs at mind throughout the observation and consider things that may have affected child A's performance. This helped with planning for her development because I know when she is at her best and when she is at her worst and I will be able to plan around these moods.
When linking the developmental milestones to the age of the child observed and making recommendations of appropriate ways to meet the developmental needs of child A, it is important that I understand whether the child was affected by my expectations of her because of her age and how this may have affected the observation when considering child A's individual needs also I needed to consider any allowances that I may have needed to have made for the child's abilities. I needed to be aware of Being able to meet children’s diverse learning needs as clearly stated in the reference below which states how important this issue is.
“All children can learn, but not all children learn in the same way, at the same time or at the same rate—learning is an individual process. Meeting children’s diverse learning needs means identifying needs, developing individual goals and objectives for a child, selecting or designing appropriate supports and services, and then choosing the best learning setting.” http://ednet.edc.gov.ab.ca/educationguide/spec-ed/partners/chapter3.pdf
The information gained from this observation can be used in many ways within the setting. The information gained has helped to point out areas within the observation which child A found difficult or more challenging than other areas with the observation. It has also helped staff within the setting to understand child A's concepts and how they a perceived amongst other children within the setting because it has been a long time since my supervisor studied this area of intellectual development. From this observation concepts will now be discussed within the setting and the children's development of concepts will be support by the adults within the setting.
The checklist method that was used to gather information about child A's development was extremely restricted as any detail of the child's actions could not be recorded within the checklist so the level of child A's abilities was not shown within the observation. This method was not effective as I will not be able to show what I actually learnt about child A's full potential because I could not record this.
When making recommendations of ways in which child A's intellectual development could be promoted my activities which I have explained include very basic materials which children see on everyday basis I have done this because I think children learn and develop from using these materials in different ways this is also related to Jerome Bruner's explanation.
"Bruner explained, and you can observe, how children over time return to the same materials or ideas but use them in a different way. For example, children from toddlers to school age often enjoy building bricks, but what they do with them extend in variety as they learn." Lindon, J (2003) Child Care and Early Years Education, Thomson.
Therefore in light of Jerome Bruner's explanation it would appear that one of the most influential tools to promote child A's concepts is by keeping materials or ideas for them when then move into the next age stage so she can expand her concepts.
From gaining knowledge about child A's concept abilities during the observation I have been able to notice what implications there may be for my professional practice.
From observing child A I have been able to see that developing concepts of hot and cold food is difficult for children. There is not just the matter of temperature in food which has just been cook and will be warm but also the child's understanding of the variety of food temperatures for example cheese can be eaten cold or it can also so be ate hot (on top Lasagne ECT). This may affect the child's concept of temperature in different types of food and they may not be able to find it easy to understand why some foods can be eaten hot and cold building up great confusion. For my future practice I will consider this and try to make temperature clearer for children to understand by using open-ended questions about their food e.g. "How else can you eat cheese? How hot/cold is it when you eat it in this way?
At the moment there is a lot of Information and computer technology (ICT) around. There are a lot of commercials that are keen to sale computer software for children, with the message the earlier the better. This relates closely to child intellectual development of under three year olds in the way that they do not need computers in order to develop more intellectually as they do not yet have an anywhere near complete understanding of the world around them , Jenny Lindon explains how computers are not necessary for development of children under three years of age:
"You will encounter commercial interests who are very keen to sell computer software for toddlers, with the message that earlier must be better. But young children have plenty of time to become computer literate and they do not yet have the understanding of their social world to make sense of screen images" Lindon, J(2003) Child Care and Early Years Education, Thomson.
Linking this statement with my observation I could use it in order to develop my recommendations further although possibly testing Jenny Lindon’s idea at the same time as to whether computers can help with child development in relation to helping children form concepts or not. For example the computer could be used for colour concepts e.g. a game in which the child has to put everything in orange on the orange blob and so on.
Bibliography
http://ednet.edc.gov.ab.ca/educationguide/spec-ed/partners/chapter3.pdf
Lindon, J (2003) Child Care and Early Years Education, Thomson
