Transcript Chapter 1 - Beulah School District 27

Learning About Children
Chapter 1
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• Child development is a fascinating subject
• Constantly changing and discovering
• How does studying children help you??
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• Help understand them and yourself
• See the changes children go through
• Helps learn positive ways to care for
children
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• Child-centered society– society that sees
children as important and works for their
good
• Some children experience neglect and
abuse
• Need safe environments
• Chance to grow and promote health and
well being
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Why Study Children?
• To understand yourself
– Appreciate all that goes into a first word or
step
– Gain insight into your own growth,
development, and personal priorities
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To Be A Responsible Parent
• Parents need to know stages of
development
• Know the best ways to respond to those
needs
• Have realistic expectations
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• Parents responsible for:
• 1. Physical needs – right diet, well fitting
clothes, need shelter, and physical
protection
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• 2. Intellectual needs – good experiences
for their children
• Develop skills needed to survive
• Creative needs recognized
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• 3. Social Needs – learn to form relationships
• Need strong relationships from parents
• Need a sense of belonging
• Socialize– train a child to live as a part of a
group, such as the family, culture, or society
• Teach child about their culture– way of life within
the group
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• 4. trust needs –need to feel they can cope
with demands of family, friends, and
society
• Able to trust parents
• Gain confidence
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5. love/guidance needs
Need love and support
Listen to children
Set limits
Share reasons for limits
Character– inward force that guides a
person’s conduct
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Protect Children’s Rights
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Easily hurt
They are physically weaker
Cannot reason as adults do
Convention on the Rights of The Child –
set out the rights of every child
– 11 major categories
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Convention on the Rights of the
Child
• 1. an identity – protect children’s names,
family ties, nationalities
• 2. a family – able to live with their parents
unless this is not in the child’s best interest
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• 3. express themselves and have access
to information
• Children have the right to express their
views, freedom of thought, conscience
religion, obtain information
• 4. a safe and healthy life – right to live, to
survive and develop, access to medical
services, decent standard of living
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• 5. special protection in times of war –
refugees are entitled to special protection,
under 15 should not take part in armed
conflict
• 6. an education – primary education free
and required for all, secondary should be
accessible to all children
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• 7. special care for the disabled – have the
right to special care, education, training
• 8. protection from discrimination – rights
apply to all children, practice their own
religion, culture, languages
• 9. protection from abuse –government
shall have laws that will protect
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• 10. protection from harmful work – right to
rest, leisure, play and participation in
cultural and artistic activities, protected
from having to work that threatens their
health, education, development
• 11. special treatment if arrested – respect
their rights
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In the United States
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Parents have the rights of guardianship
Determine their children’s upbringing
Control religious and moral taching
Each state makes laws and policies
– School attendance, child labor, illegal drug
sales
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• State protect children from the results of
their own lack of judgment
• Cannot make a contract
• Treated differently in court than adults
• Local laws can be enacted also
– curfews
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Working with Children
• Careers focus on only one area of child’s
needs
• School cook – nutrition
• Teacher -- intellectual
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What is Child Development
• Development – gradual process of growth
through many stages, infancy, children,
adolescence, and adulthood
• Child development – scientific study of
children from conception to adolescence
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• Child development focuses on changes
that occur in children over time
• Do research to gather information
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Individual Life Cycle
• Is a description of the stages of change
people experience thoughout life
• Stages based on changes in growth and
behavior
• Exact ages may vary
• Basic idea where the stage begins or ends
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• Prenatal –begins at conception and ends
about 9 months later at birth
• Fastest rate of growth
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• Neonatal – birth through the second week
• Baby physically adapts to life outside of
the mother’s body
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• Infancy – two week until the first birthday
• Develops the foundation for motor,
thinking, language, and social skills
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• Toddler stage – begins at 12 months and
ends at 36 months
• Great strides in motor, thinking, language
skills and begins to test his or her
dependence on adults
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• Preschool stage – begins at three years
and ends at six years
• Spends hours play exploring social and
physical world
• More self sufficient
• Rather stable self-concept
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• School age stage – begins at 6 years and
ends at 12 years
• Typical ages of elementary school
• Master the basics of reading, writing, math
• Interact with more peers
• Learn by group instruction
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Factors that Influence Growth and
Development
• 1. each child has unique, inborn traits
• 2. child’s surroundings also play a large
role
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• Heredity – sum of all the traits that are
passed to a child from blood relatives
• Environment – sum of all conditions and
situations that affect a child’s growth and
development
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• Heredity
• Genes—sections of the DNA molecule
found in a person’s cells that determine
the individual traits the person will have
• Genetics –study of the factors involved in
passing of traits from one generation to
the next
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• Genes influence your growth and
development
– Genes’ instructions are lifelong
– Genes affect some parts of growth and
development more than others (color of eyes,
skin, teeth, mental ability)
– Some genes determine whether a person will
have a trait
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• Other genes affect the range of traits
• Height, athletic ability
• Whether a person will show or use the trait
to its potential depends on the person’s life
• Poor nutrition = not achieve full potential
• Good nutrition = reach potential height
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Environment
• Affects growth and development
• Food and rest part of environment
• These condition shape the experiences
children have
• Studies show that babies’ brains develop
at a slower rate if no one holds or talks to
them
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Heredity & Environment Combined
• Working together
• Genes control how quickly a babies
muscles and bones grow (heredity) but a
proper diet is important also (environment)
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Brain Development
• Brain research with high technology and
advances in biochemistry
• More information available now
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Basic Wiring Occurs
• Brain responsible for controlling most body
functions
• Neurons – cells that send and receive
electrical impulses amongst each other
that direct the various tasks of the brain
• Wiring – network of fibers that carry brain
signals between neurons
• See page 30 figure 1-11
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• Axons – long, thick cables that transmit all
the signals from a neuron to other neurons
• Dendrites – short, bush cables that allow
each neuron to receive signals sent by
other neurons
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• Synapse – tiny gap between a dendrite of
one neuron and the axon of another
across which electrical impulses can be
transmitted
• Pruning – process of weeding out
underused or weak connections between
neurons
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Heredity & Environment Interact
• Heredity affects how many neurons a baby
will have throughout life
• All neurons present at birth
• Overtime, brain continues to strengthen
used pathways, but begins to weed out
unused ones
• Pruning – process of weeding out
underused or weak connections between
neurons
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• Rich sensory experiences create new
dendrites, builds new networks for learning
• Rich experiences, hugs, hearing music,
learning a skill, exploring a toy
• Strengthen and refine brain’s wiring
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Windows of Opportunity
• Timing is an important concept when it
comes to brain development
• Window of opportunity = prime period in a
child’s life for developing a particular skill if
given the chance to do so
• Some windows are large while other are
not
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• Language development is a good example
• Some windows are small like vision which
is completed in a few months
• Once passed, more difficult to acquire
• Skills are learned at the same time with
windows of opportunity
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Brain Plasticity
• Ability of the brain to be shaped and
reshaped, which is greatest early in life
• Positive and negative effects
• Depends on environment
• Great deal of stimulation increases
strength of the wiring
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Positive Environment for Young
Children
• Best experiences are interaction with
loving adults engaged in daily tasks/family
type activities
• Children need choices in what and how to
learn – let them choose toys, story
• Children need time to practice and master
skills (repetition)
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Brain Plasticity
• Easily injured by abuse, neglect or other
negative experience
• Stress has a harmful effect on brain
function
• “fight or flight” chemical change like an
acid bath washing over brain wiring
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Plasticity
• Lessens with age
• 3 yr old is far less changeable than at birth
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• 1. infant and toddler years are times of
great brain activity and learning
• 2. children who have developmental
delay, live in unsafe environments, or lack
stimulating experiences need early
professional help to overcome these
obstacles
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• 3. a good early environment provides the
best foundation for all areas of
development
• Early years are the most important for all
areas of growth and development
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Differences in the Rate of Growth
and Development
• Developmental acceleration – when a
child performs like an older child
• Developmental delay – when a child
performs like a younger child
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• A child may be developmentally
accelerated or delayed in one area
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Principles of Growth &
Development
• Statements of the general patterns in
which growth and development take place
in people
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Growth & Development are
Constant
• Traits controlled by heredity do not change
• People often live in the same environment
for years
• Tall 2 year old will be a tall adult
• Good at school in elementary will be good
at high school
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Growth & Development are
Gradual and Continuous
• Changes take place in little, unbroken
steps
• Tells us that if people don’t develop they
may do so later
• If the window has closed it may be
possible to learn but extremely hard if
possible at all
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Growth & Development Happen in
Sequenced Steps
• Steps in growth and development that
follow one another in a set order
• Teachable moment – time when a person
can learn a new task because the body is
physically ready, caregivers encourage
and support, and the child feels a strong
desire to learn
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Growth & Development Happen at
Different Rates
• Experts know when fast and slow periods
of growth and development occur
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Vary from one child to another
Need a good environment
If lacking they may lag behind
Some children eager to learn, others are
not
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Growth & Development Have
Interrelated Parts
• All aspects are interact
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Theories of Growth & Development
• Most famous researchers
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Erik Erikson
Jean Piaget
Others:
Havighurst and Abraham Maslow
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Havighurst
• Theory of Developmental Tasks
• Developmental tasks – skills that should be
mastered at a certain stage in life
• Educator and behavioral scientist
• Believed achieving developmental tasks lead to
happiness and success with later tasks
• Failure to achieve leads to unhappiness and
problems with later tasks
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3 Sources
• 1. physical growth – a baby comes into
the world as helpless, as body matures
learn new skills
• 2. social pressures – rewards and
penalties society pressure child to master
task seen as important
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• 3. inner pressures -- actual push to
achieves comes from within children
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Maslow’s Theory of Human Needs
• Noted psychologist
• Believed that development is a result of
meeting personal needs
• All people work to fulfill basic needs and
higher-level needs
• See page 42 figure 1-19
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• 1. Basic needs – physiological and
psychological
• 4 basic categories
• 1. physiological
• 2. psychological
• 3. belonging/love
• 4. esteem
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Higher Level Needs
• Self actualization – needs that at to grow
and feel fulfilled as a person
• Drive to pursue talents, hobbies, gain skills
and learn more about the world
• Education meets self-actualization
• Complete self-actualization is a lifelong
process
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Hierarchy of Human Needs
• Lower level needs ( basic needs) must be
somewhat fulfilled before high level needs
can be pursued
• Further up the hierarchy a person can go,
the more growth and fulfillment he or she
will seek
• Sees humans as drive by need to become
more fulfilled
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Observing Children
• Oldest, most common and best way to
learn about human behavior
• Observing adults who work with children,
you can learn to imitate their successful
behaviors
• Senses are main tools in observation
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• Observation skills must be learned
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What Do Researchers Want to
Know?
• May think of another idea to study
• Want to know more about a behavior and
decide to observe further
• May look for causes that affect behavior
• Helps you to better interact with children
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Ways to Observe
• Observe directly
• Direct observation—watching children in
their natural environments
• Play groups, child care programs, schools
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• Indirect Observations –asking questions of
parents, teachers, or children
• Observe products children make,
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Guidelines for Observing
• 1. protect the rights of the subject and the
observer
• See page 45, 46 figure1-22
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Making Observations
• 1. list examples of culture you have
observed being handed down from one
generation to another.
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