5 CYP Core 3

CYP Core 3.1: Understand child and young person development.

1.2 Explain the difference between the sequence of development and the rate of development and why the difference is important.
2.1 Explain how children and young people’s development is influenced by a range of personal factors.
2.2 Explain how children and young people’s development is influenced by a range of external factors.

Sequence of development is the order in which it occurs, for example, toddlers have to walk before they can run. Therefore sequences of development are mostly the same for all children. To plan effectively for children we need to know children’s abilities. Rate of development is the timeframe in which it occurs. Rates of development vary between children as well as different areas of child development. By checking it we can find out if child needs extra support in some areas of development. Children and young people, even if they are at the same age, are different. This happen because their development is influenced by both personal and external factors.
The personal factors are: genetics - genetic information can be faulty what affects children’s health and development, individuality, mother’s life style and diet during pregnancy - the baby can be harm if mother smokes, takes drugs or alcohol during pregnancy; also infections, like rubella, that mother picks up can create difficulties, time and experience at birth – if a child is born too early, have breathe straight away or gets injured during the birth – can affect brain and result in learning difficulties, health status – depends on genetics as well as diet, stress or environment – all can affect development, disability, sensory impairments, learning difficulties.
The external factors include: poverty – affects children in many ways: poor diet affects growth, behaviour and development; poor housing – health and play opportunities; education – lack of opportunities; poverty leads to low expectation and lack of motivation family lifestyles, care status – children and young people who are responsibility of local authorities lack of warm and consistency and do not form attachments, education – help children to socialise and develop moral codes, personal choices – like smoking , taking drugs or living on the streets, stimulating and safe environment, clear boundaries, positive models.
2.3 Explain how theories of development and frameworks to support development influence current practice.

An understanding of children’s development is essential, allowing us to understand their cognitive, emotional, physical, social and educational growth. Theories of development help us understand children’s behaviour as well as their ways of learning and some of them influence our practice. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was the first who note that children play an active role in gaining knowledge of the world. According to his constructivist theory, children can be thought of as "little scientists" who actively construct their knowledge and understanding of the world. According to Piaget children build up their thoughts according to their experiences and learning is ongoing process of adapting children’s ideas to new information.

To help us to understand the way of children’s thinking, he grouped their cognitive development in four stages. Stage
Characterised by
Sensori-motor
(Birth-2 yrs)
Differentiates self from objects. Begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise. Realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present.
Pre-operational
(2-7 years)
Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words. Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others. Classifies objects by a single feature.
Concrete operational
(7-11 years)
Can think logically about objects and events. Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size.
Formal operational
(11 years and up)
Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically. Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems

Piaget’s theory influenced “child-centred” teaching. This means that teachers, first needs to work out child’s needs and then plan activities accordingly.

Another theory of cognitive development, that influenced English early years frameworks, was made by Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). In his theory social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. Every function in the child’s cultural development appears first on the social level (between people), and later, on the individual level (inside the child). Vygotsky viewed cognitive developments as a result of a process, where the child learns through shared problem solving experiences with someone else, such as parents, teacher, siblings or a peer. Originally, the person interacting with the child undertakes most of the responsibility for guiding the problem solving, but gradually this responsibility transfers to the child. According to him children can guide and develop each others potential.
The theory shows the importance of children working together and being active in their learning, as well as challenging children by adults. To do it they need to know child’s ‘level of actual development’.

According to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) psychoanalytic theory, personality is mostly established by the age of five. Early experiences play a large role in personality development and continue to influence behaviour later in life.
The structure of personality involves three parts: the id, the ego, and the super-ego.
The id contains the drives that people have. These are the drives for pleasure. If humans have instincts, this is where they are. The id wants its wishes immediately and directly fulfilled. The id is governed by the pleasure principle, which suggests that all processes operate to achieve the maximum amount of pleasure.
The ego works out how to meet the id’s needs in the best way. Ego develops form id in first months of our lives and is often see as common sense. Sometimes the ego postpones the immediate gratification demanded by the id for later, and greater, gratification.
The superego develops in childhood and tries to control ego. It contains all of the moral lessons the person has learned in their life. It has two elements: the conscience to punish the ego if it misbehaves, and ego-ideal to reward ego for good behaviour.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other needs. If the basic needs won’t be met, they create a deficiency in the person. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid.

The theory emphasize that in practice, professionals need to think both about the environment they create for children and forming strong relationship with them.

Social learning theory, by Albert Bandura (1925) suggests that children learn by observing others. The learning is spontaneous but not all observed behaviours are effectively learned. Factors involving both the model and the learner can play a role in whether social learning is successful. These are:
Attention- In order to learn, child need to be paying attention. Anything that detracts attention is going to have a negative effect on observational learning. If the model interesting or there is a novel aspect to the situation, children are far more likely to dedicate their full attention to learning.
Retention- The ability to store information is also an important part of the learning process. Retention can be affected by a number of factors, but the ability to pull up information later and act on is vital to observational learning.
Reproduction- Once child has paid attention to the model and retained the information, it is time to actually perform the observed behaviour.
Motivation - In order for observational learning to be successful, child has to be motivated to imitate the behaviour that has been modelled. Reinforcement and punishment play an important role in motivation.
Children and young people learn a lot of social behaviours by observing how people around them act. That is why it is important that staff act as good role models. The behaviourist approach to children’s development suggests that our learning is influenced by rewards, punishments and environmental factors. The operant conditioning theory, made by B.F. Skinner (1904-90), suggests that humans learn through exploring environment and drawing conclusions based on the consequences of their behaviour. Skinner divided the consequences into three groups:
Positive reinforcers – are the best way of encouraging learning. They includes attention, praise, stickers or sweets. When children get something they wanted, they are likely to repeat the behaviour.
Negative reinforces – also make children repeat their behaviour, but they do it in order to stop something happening.
Punishers – are likely to stop children from repeating the behaviour.
Skinner found also that unpredictable, frequent and immediate positive reinforcers are the most effective.
Skinner influenced education by showing that positive reinforcement is more effective at changing and establishing behaviour than punishment. He also suggests that the main thing people learn from being punished is how to avoid punishment. Professionals working with children and young people should always prise them if they do well. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) made an experiment on dogs. He noticed that dogs were salivate before they were getting food. He came to the conclusion that they associate the food with other things as for example footsteps. He then was feeding the dogs when bell was sounded. Dogs after some time associated the sound of bell with food and even when Pavlov stopped giving dogs their food, they still salivated on the bell. The action was becoming weaker until the dogs stopped react to the bell. John B. Watson (1878-1958) demonstrated, over Pavlov’s work, that children can be conditioned. In his opinion nothing is instinctual but everything is built into a child through the interaction with their environment. Parents therefore hold complete responsibility since they choose what environment to allow their child to develop in. To prove his thesis he created a phobia of rats in small boy. John Bowlby (1907-90) stated that children’s and young people’s behaviour and mental health could be linked to separation from their primary carers. This effect can be reduced if child can make another strong attachment. This influenced education and child care with key person system, in which the key person develops the bond with the child. The theories of child development and ways of working with children were brought together and created frameworks of care and education. Early Years Foundation Stage and Every child Matters are such frameworks. The way of working with children is called social pedagogy. It is looking for ideas how work to improve children’s chances in life. Social pedagogy represents the holistic approach to education and relationships of children and aim to support it. It provides environment that supports child independency and encourages practitioners to communicate and interact with children. The pedagogy looks at child as individual, assessing child through observation, reflection and dialogue. It focused on child’s wellbeing.
3.1 Explain how to monitor children and young people’s development using different methods.

It is very important to observe and assess children’s and young people’s development, because through this we learn about them and check their overall development. Knowing child’s rate of development, enable us to plan to meet their needs as well as see if child is progressing. By observing we can understand child’s interests and support children strengths. The most effective way to check child’s developmental progress is to use different methods and a range of sources. These include: assessment frameworks – Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, or the P-scales, observation - is a key part in early years settings; there are different types of observations: narrative, development checklist, anecdotal observations, time sampling, event recording or target child, standard measurements – auditory and health assessments, tests carried out by professionals as educational psychologists, information from parents, carers and others who are involved with the child.

In my setting we use Early Years Foundation Stage Profile as a framework to measure our children’s development. To find out the specific needs of individual children I and my colleagues use observation, which according to EYFS “describes the process of watching the children in our care, listening to them and taking note of what we hear and see”.
In my practice I use different types of formative observations: participant observations, when I note down the significant things I see while involved with children, narrative observations are planned and last up to 10 minutes; I watch child and note everything they do and say, incidental observations, when I just notice children doing or saying important things parents observations – before planning next step for a child I ask parents to write their observation about what their child enjoys doing at home.
To plan next step and focus activities for a child I analyse all the information from observations.
I am also aware of tracking observations that are helpful in seeing which areas of setting children use the most and their friendship groups.
I record the observation on observation sheets, posted notes or as photographs.

3.2 Explain the reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected pattern.

Although the sequence of development is mostly the same for all children, some of them may not follow the pattern expected in relation to their age. This can happen because of variety of reasons, like: disability -can prevent child from developing in one of more areas, but early identification and support can minimise its effects, emotional – children with low confidence or depressed may not be motivated to try new things, physical – development can be affected by genetic code or difficulties in physical growth, environmental – external influences of family structure or educational setting, cultural – means the way children are bringing up, parents approach to children independence and freedom, social – poverty or family lifestyle when they do not pay attention to some important areas of life, learning needs may be due to many reasons, like disease or difficulties at birth, communication skills – children with low level of communication skills are easily frustrated, behave aggressive, find it hard to concentrate. Sometimes it is impossible to found the reasons for different pattern of child development.

4.1 Analyse the importance of early identification of speech, language and communication delays and disorders and the potential risk of late recognition.

Speech, language and communication skills are essential for children and young people development. Language enables us to say what we think or need. Children who have poor language and problems to communicate with others can become frustrated and find it difficult to control their behaviour. They may feel isolated and hardly play with other children. The difficulties can affect literacy development - reading and writing, as children with communication delay find it hard to link sounds with letter shapes. It is very important to identify any speech, language and communication delays or disorders as early as possible, because young children’s brains are still developing and early support can minimize the potential impact of difficulty. Helping children to communicate is important also for their emotional well-being and self-esteem.

4.2 Explain how multi-agency teams work together to support speech, language and communication.

When child have any speech, language and communication difficulties, professionals from different services can be involved for support the child’s development:
- SENCO,
- Social worker,
- Speech and language therapist,
- Educational psychologist,
- Psychiatrist,
- Physiotherapist,
- Nurse specialist,
- Additional learning support teams,
- Youth justice teams.
When the type of needed support is established all professionals needs to work together with parents and setting.

In my setting, if I have any concern about child’s development, I observe the child and talk to my manager, who is our setting’s SENCO. We then meet with the child’s carers and share our concerns. If it’s required, the SENCO sends the CAF form to get support from the adequate specialists.
At present we work together with speech and language therapist, who assesses three of our children and helped us to prepare the Indyvidual Educational Plans for them.

4.3 Explain how play and activities are used to support the development of speech, language and communication.

The best way to support children’s and young people’s speech, language and communication development is to provide play and activities that interest children and motivate them for communicating. For example:
- puppets and cuddly toys – motivate children to vocalise or make specific mouth movements,
- role play and dressing up give opportunity for adult to play alongside children and encourage their communication,
- nursery rhymes, songs and musical instruments might help to practise particular sounds,
- books can be used to increase vocabulary, learn meaning of words and can meet child’s interests,
- blowing bubbles, balloons,
- Makaton,
Dvds’ like Mr Tumble

5.1 Explain how different types of transitions can affect children and young people’s development.

Transitions are the changes that take place in children’s and young people’s lives. They are an essential pert of growing up. There are different kinds of transitions physical - like moving house, country emotional – death of relative or lost of pet, changes to family structure psychological – puberty or long term medical condition, changes to body, intellectual – moving : from pre-school to primary school, from primary to secondary, ect.

5.2 Evaluate the effect on children and young people of having positive relationships during periods of transition.

Children and young people can be affected by the transitions easily. The effects can be temporary or last for long time. This can be: extroverted behaviours – cheerful and attention seeking, lack of concentration and motivation, depression, sleeplessness, food issues – fussy eating or overeating, behaviour – antisocial, shouting, swearing, self-harm – drinking alcohol, taking drugs, risky behaviour, regression – showing behaviour of younger children, aggression – tantrums, unreasonable behaviour, withdrawal – quiet, unwilling to join in with others or activities, clinginess – unwilling to leave the sight of familiar adult, illness – stomach pains, often colds and viruses.

The experience of going through the transitions depends on the kind of response and support children and young people get from adults around them. If they respond warmly, firmly and consistently, even when children made mistakes, they will come through the transition with positive rewards; feeling they belong, feeling more confident, deepening a trusting relationships with important people around them.
With unexpected transitions, such as divorce or moving house, there is even more pressure on the adults to get the supporting response right. Much damage can be done to a child if their feelings are not responded to when some serious change is taking place. That is why it is so important for children in early years settings to have positive relationship with someone at the setting. That person should be child’s key person, with whom child will feel secure, have warm relationship, this person should be able to reassure, listen and valid child’s experience. She should also monitor the child’s reactions to new situation and be able to notice if the effects of transition are not temporary. In my own practice as a key person I have strong positive relationships with all my key children. They feel safe and secure with me at the setting and express their feelings.
I believe the best way to support children through transition is to familiarise them with the changes, listen to their concerns and feelings and talk through all anxieties. Children should know what they should expect to happen and what is normal in the new situation.

Healy, J. (2011) Handout at CIC
Tassoni, P. et al (2010)Children and Young People Workforce level 2/3, Heinemann