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ECE 103 Human Growth and Development I

Summer 2010

Your Textbook The textbook is a must for this class. If you have not already purchased it.. You should do that tonight. If you have purchased the 7th edition you will probably be fine. We will try to work with different page numbers and new additions to the material as needed.

Section One

  Our children are our hope for the future and our responsibility for the present

  Knowledge of their growth and development will aid adults who work with them to provide the most supportive environment possible.

  Who is “the young child?”

  According to NAEYC – National Association for the Education of Young Children, children from birth through eight years of age are considered to be “young children”

Age categories of young children

  Infants – birth to one year

  Toddlers – one year to three years

  Preschoolers – Three years to five years

  Kindergarteners – five years to six years

  Primary – six years through eight years

Pay particularly close attention to the words in the margin of

the book!

  Jerry Tello (1995) tells us that the young child is a small person who is complex and at times puzzling. He states that children come into the classroom as reflections of their diverse family backgrounds. Some are not prepared to take full advantage of what the classroom or the teacher has to offer. Some children may “speak an entirely different language, practice different customs, expect different kinds of nurturing embrace different values, be surrounded by people who look different, or have a variety of special needs”.

At risk children

  High risk or “at risk” children are individuals who are at risk for school failure and possibly even for survival due to various environmental, mental, physical, and/or emotional problems

Infants

  The newborn or “infant” is only interested in personal comfort. Infants are totally dependant on others for their well being. The newborn wants to be warm, well fed, and have a dry diaper. Very quickly the newborn learns to expect attention and cuddling from the caregiver in his/her environment. Soon the infant becomes aware of his/her own body and of things in the environment that he can control. By age one the infant moves into the toddler period.

Case one: Maria, Andy & Ann

  In your textbook page 2 and 3 read the section titled “Infant” about Maria, Andy and Ann.

  When you have finished reading we will discuss the three infant’s actions and development characteristics.

Read on….

  Read through the next few sections (pages 3, 4 and 5) about toddlers, three year olds, four year olds, five year olds and six through eight year olds.

  Use the developmental checklist attached to the syllabus to evaluate each child.

  Think about the special needs of the children in the descriptions just mentioned. Describe your reactions and interpretations. Do you think there is a “typical” child at any age? What are some factors that put some of the children described “at risk”

The adult role

  Relationships with adults are critical to young children’s growth and development. According to child psychiatrist Stanley L. Greenspan: … “good relationships and emotional interaction are the most critical primary foundation for social and intellectual growth, including communication and thinking. Relationships teach children which behaviors are appropriate and which are not.” (Greenspan, 2001)

Developmentally Appropriate Practices

  Instructional practice that is age, individually, and culturally appropriate as defined by NAEYC

  Since 1997 NAEYC also advises the recognition of culturally appropriate practices. Pg. 11 of text

Developmental and learning theories

  The study of children has been a subject of great interest during the twentieth century. Scholars have gathered information about and from children and have used this information to formulate ideas about how children grow and develop. Theorist and researchers use this data to develop broad ideas that attempt to explain how children grow and learn. These ideas are called theories. A theory is designed to show one plan or a set of rules that explains, describes, or predicts what happens when children grow and learn.

Types of theories

  Growth – A series of steps or stages a child goes through on the way to becoming an adult. Actual bodily changes

  Learning – behavioral changes caused by experiences.

  Developmental Theories – explain changes in a child that result from growth and learning. Every child develops in a similar manner but not always at the same pace or speed.

  Behaviorist Theories – usually explain changes that originate in the environment through learning. Behaviorist theories explain how a child learns regardless of his age. For example: a child hears language, imitates it and is rewarded for making the sounds so the child will learn to talk

  Norms – what most children do at a certain age. What they “should” be doing at any given age.

  Normative/Maturational view – a way of looking at development that stresses certain norms.

  Cognitive growth – Centers on the mind and how the mind works as the child grows and learns.

  Affective growth – centers on the self concept and the development of social, emotional, and personality characteristics

  Physical growth – development of the body and its parts

  Motor development – The development of skill in the use of the body and its parts.

  Page 13 and 14 give good examples of each of the types of theory. Be sure to read this section.

The theorists

  It is important for teachers of young children to be familiar with a variety of theoretical approaches to understand, explain, and respond to children’s behaviors.

  Theorists we will study indepth: Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, B.F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, Carl Rogers, Arnold Gesell, and Abraham Maslow.

B.F. Skinner

  http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html

  One of the only theorists to interested in more than one area of development and learning. He explored cognitive, affective, physical and motor development.

  Skinner is a behavioist.

  Positive reinforcement for desired behaviors

Albert Bandura

  Albert Bandura, also a behaviorist focused the fact that a lot of learning takes place through the learners attention to and observation of others. He believed that aggression is learned through a process called behavior modeling. He believed that individuals do not actually inherit violent tendencies, but they modeled them after observing those in their environment. Therefore, good behavior by the example will foster good behavior from the child.

Jean Piaget

  The guru of cognitive development theory.

  He believed that all learning was connected to the child’s environment and the exploration there of.

  As children interact with the environment, they construct knowledge.

  He believed that knowledge construction is more a more effective way of teaching/learning than direct instruction, and that a child’s motivation to learn comes from their natural curiosity about the world.

Piaget’s stages of Cognitive Development

Lev Vygotsky

  Believed that the key to learning for young children comes from the support of adults and interaction with advanced (older or smarter) peers.

  Believed that language is the key to learning

Sigmund Freud

  Social and personality development

  The id, the ego and the super ego

  Focused on sexual and aggressive drives as motivators (oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, chart on pg. 14)

  The id represents biological forces. It is also a constant in the personality as it is always present. The id is governed by the "pleasure principle", or the notion of hedonism (the seeking of pleasure). Early in the development of his theory Freud saw sexual energy only, or the libido, or the life instinct, as the only source of energy for the id. It was this notion that gave rise to the popular conception that psychoanalysis was all about sex, sex, sex. After the carnage of World War I, however, Freud felt it necessary to add another instinct, or source of energy, to the id. So, he proposed thanatos, the death instinct. Thanatos accounts for the instinctual violent urges of humankind. Obviously, the rest of the personality would have somehow to deal with these two instincts. Notice how Hollywood has capitalized on the id. Box office success is highly correlated with movies that stress either sex, violence, or both.

  The ego is the surface of the personality, the part you show the world. The ego is governed by the "reality principle ," or a pragmatic approach to the world. For example, a child may want to snitch a cookie from the kitchen, but will not if a parent is present. Id desires are still present, but the ego realizes the consequences of brazen cookie theft. The ego develops with experience, and accounts for developmental differences in behavior. For example, parents expect 3-month infants to cry until fed, but, they also expect 3-year-olds to stop crying when told they will be fed.

  The superego consists of two parts, the conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience is the familiar metaphor of angel and devil on each shoulder. The conscience decides what course of action one should take. The ego-ideal is an idealized view of one's self. Comparisons are made between the ego-ideal and one's actual behavior. Both parts of the super-ego develop with experience with others, or via social interactions. According to Freud, a strong super-ego serves to inhibit the biological instincts of the id, while a weak super-ego gives in to the id's urgings. Further, the levels of guilt in the two cases above will be high and low, respectively.

Erik Erikson

  Psychosocial Theory – the psychology and social relationships of a person govern growth and learning

  Successfully passing through each crisis involves 'achieving' a healthy ratio or balance between the two opposing dispositions that represent each crisis. For example a healthy balance at crisis stage stage one (Trust v Mistrust) might be described as experiencing and growing through the crisis 'Trust' (of people, life and one's future development) and also experiencing and growing a suitable capacity for 'Mistrust' where appropriate, so as not to be hopelessly unrealistic or gullible, nor to be mistrustful of everything.

Erikson/Freud correlation

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

  Physiological Needs – air, water, food, sleep

  Safety needs – safety, health insurance, job security, financial security

  Social needs – friends, belonging to a group, giving and receiving love

  Esteem needs – recognition, attention, social status, accomplishment, self respect

  Self actualization – truth, justice, wisdom, meaning in life

Constructivist

  A believer in the idea that children construct their own knowledge through interaction with the environment.

  Piaget and Vygotsky are Constructivists

Most developmental theories look at 4 different types of growth

  Cognitive growth - Centers on the mind and how the mind works as a child grows and learns.

  Affective growth – centers on the self concept and the development of social, emotional, and personality characteristics.

  Physical Growth – has to do with the development of the body and its parts

  Motor development – refers to the development of skill in the use of the body and its parts

Pg. 18 and 19

  Discuss the scenarios of theory application

What makes theories worth reading?

  Not the assumption that they mirror reality, but that they serve as suggestions or estimations. They help us arrange our minds. Theories are helpful in that they organize and give meaning to facts, and they guide further observation and research.

Scaffolding

  A process through which an adult supports the child’s learning, providing support as the child moves from the current developmental level to a higher one.

Critical theory

  Encourages teachers to examine the power of relationships in the classroom

History of child study

  As far back as the 1800 baby biographies (baby books) were made to mark the accomplishments of children as they grew and developed.

  These biographies were the first form of child study and record keeping and intrigued researchers to perform more detailed child studies.

  1943 – 1963 educators in the United States began to pay more attention to child studies and developmental theories and incorporating them into teaching and learning situations.

Researcher David G. Smith

  WE cannot define what a child is. We have to lood at each child in relation to others, such as parents, teachers, and peers. Every person who has contact with a child has a “picture” of that child in the environment in which they are together.

  Ecological research model – microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem. Pg. 29 and chart on pg. 30

Methods of child study pg. 31

  Anecdotal record

  Diary Method

  Parent interview

  Interview with child

  Running record

Inappropriate testing

  Pg 35 – Think about your experiences with testing. How do you feel when you have to take a test? Can you remember any of your early test experiences in elementary or high school? Compare your test experiences with others in the class.

Professional Ethics

  NAEYC – professional ethics

  The key MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE IS:

  ABOVE ALL WE SHALL NOT HARM CHILDREN