Tag: child development

Child development: Montessori

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was the first female doctor in Italy. She specialised in paediatrics and worked with children from disadvantaged backgrounds, setting up a nursery for children where the only toys were simple objects and staff were told to observe rather than intervene. Based on the results of her experiment she developed her own method, now known worldwide as the Montessori method, founded on her observations.

She believed education starts at birth and that children have special periods where they are more able to learn certain skills. It is the role of the adult to identify these periods and offer the child specially adapted activities. She felt that all children were naturally able to learn and curious about the world around them, learning through movement (particularly the hands) and the senses (which led to the development of her sandpaper letters), and show spontaneous self-discipline when in an environment that meets their needs.

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Child development: Vygotsky

Psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) wrote many papers and books about child development. His work focused on three main areas – language and its influence on thought, the zone of proximal development and the social context in which learning takes place. Vygotsky was a constructivist; he believed that a learner builds their knowledge and understanding directly from what they experience.

Vygotsky encouraged people to talk to children and to label what was happening to help them understand abstract concepts. He felt that language was developed through social interaction and saw the effect that adults talking about everyday experiences had not only on a child’s language (their grammar and vocabulary) but also on the formation of ways of thinking and interpreting experiences. He noted that children observed conversations between others and that they use what is said, what is done (both body language and actions) and what is felt to interpret the social situations they observe. Finally Vygotsky observed how children talk to themselves when carrying out tasks to unify action and language, and that this disappears around the age of 7, however it can reappear for difficult tasks. Even adults talk to themselves when faced with something difficult!

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Child development: Friedrich Froebel

Froebel (1782-1852) was one of the very early theorists concerned with play. He believed that it was vital to child development, and that children enjoyed it. He was also the first person to set out a comprehensive theory of how children learn and how others could apply his work. His work is still popular because it allows children to be children, and not progress onto the next stage of development too quickly. He was very interested in the mother-child attachment and pioneered women teachers as well as free play, sensory experiences and plenty of time outdoors.

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Child development: BF Skinner

Burrhus Skinner (1904-1990) was a behavioural theorist whose work was mostly based on experiments carried out on rodents. He believed that animals and people were essentially the same, but that people were simply capable of more sophisticated learning. His argument was that all behaviour is linked to nurture and that behaviour is intrinsically linked to punishment and reward. By punishing negative behaviour and rewarding desirable behaviour an animal or person will learn to behave in the expected way. Skinner, however, prioritised reward over punishment, and advocated breaking things down into achievable steps with plenty of positive reinforcement and reward for each step. His work also influenced education by encouraging the repetition of the same type of sum or word.

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Child development: Gesell

Arnold Gesell (1880-1961) studied children to observe and record their growth and development. He divided normative development into 10 areas, named gradients of growth. He was a maturationist, so ignored outside influences although he understood the conflict between nature and nurture, and identified the developmental milestones which are widely used today.

He categorised development into 10 areas.

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Child development: Bowlby

John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a psychoanalyst best known for his work on attachment. He thought that many mental health and behavioural problems stemmed from the first years of life, and that babies are born with an inbuilt need to form an attachment to one figure – usually the mother. This primary bond was the most important attachment and formed the pattern for all other relationships in a person’s life. Children should be cared for by this person up until the age of 2, ideally the age of 5, and any disruption avoided. Short term separation, he thought, led to distress which was separated into 3 stages.

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Child development: Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson (1902-1994) was a psychoanalyst who was particularly interested in the way that a child’s personality develops. He divided development into 8 ‘ages’ or stages that children need to progress through to become self-fulfilled adults. Like many other theorists Erikson defined each stage by a conflict that need to be resolved. Erikson’s theory focuses on conflict between a positive and a negative emotion and lasted from birth right through to the end of life. His theory also put society and a person’s relationships with others at the centre of their development.

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Child development: Piaget

Jean Piaget (1896-1902) focused on a child’s cognitive development and was the first psychologist to study cognitive development closely. He used the term Schema to explain how a child learns to understand the world around them. What a child does influences how they think about the world, and the new information they gain from redoing the activity changes how they think, modifying or extending the schema. Development is a process of reorganising these schemas and allowing a child to progress to the next stage of development.

When a child is in a state of equilibrium their schemata can explain the world around them. Children have to have assimilate, or gather, information about the world to explain what is happening around them according to their existing schemata. As they experience new things they cannot explain using their existing schemata Piaget felt they were in disequilibrium and needed to modify their schemata to create equilibrium, a leap in development. The process of modifying schemata and finding equilibrium is called accommodation.

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Child development: Freud

One of the first child development theorists was Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud believed that all children had innate, basic aggressive and sexual desires, and the way that parents and other adults dealt with these desires would determine a child’s personality when they were grown up.

According to Freud babies are born with a selfish ‘ID’ which only cares about gratification of selfish urges. Later a child develops an ‘EGO’ as they learn that not all of their wants and desires can be fulfilled. The Ego is more realistic than the Id but still self-centred. Last to develop is the ‘SUPER-EGO’ which works with the Ego to control the Id and represents moral values. The Super-Ego is capable of acting altruistically and suppressing the desires of the Id and Ego which are self-serving.

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Tummy time

‘Tummy time’ can be a daunting prospect. It’s drummed into parents and childcare professionals alike that babies must sleep on their backs and that leaving an infant on their front is risky. But eqaully tummy time is vital to help babies develop strong neck and back muscles from the start and to prevent flat spots which can develop when too much time is spent lying on their back.

The concept of tummy time is simple. You pop baby on their front on a playmat or blanket covering a hard surface and allow them to try to lift their head at first, eventually pushing up with their arms and finally onto all fours so they can crawl. In practice many infants dislike tummy time at first and older babies can get frustrated. Tummy time doesn’t need to last for ours, or even minutes, to be effective right at the start. Even 15 seconds once a day gives a newborn the chance to move their head from side to side, and you can build up gradually. It’s often reassuring to keep a hand on their back so even when they can’t see you they still have that comforting contact. If a baby starts to cry or show signs of frustration or distress then it’s a sign that tummy time is over.

 

As they grow and become aware of their surroundings you can play games while they lie on their tummies. Try shifting position relative to their head and saying their name – they should look around to locate you. Another big hit once they can push themselves up a little is a child-safe mirror propped up in front of them. They will be fascinated by the other baby that they see there. Lie on the floor in front of them and make faces – anything that keeps them amused also gives them time to strengthen those important muscles.

 

Mix things up by altering the place you put baby down. Change the angle of elevation if you have a firm pillow or nursing cushion – put it under their torso with their arms in front. This can be really good for babies suffering from reflux as it keeps them slightly upright. You can also do very short bursts, for example after blowing a raspberry on their tummy when changing their nappy quickly roll them over to blow a few on their back too.

 

To encourage a baby to reach out and eventually crawl put a favourite toy just in front of them and allow them to grab it and pull it closer. as they grow place the toy further away as an incentive to get on the move. Crawling can also be easier if you remove unnecessary or constricting clothes before tummy time, just make sure the room is nice and warm.

 

Tummy time can be done anwhere – inside, upstairs, downstairs, outside on grass or sand – as often and for as long as you like. The most important thing to make it fun and give your baby a chance to develop.