Infant And Toddler Assessment Essay

To better teach and understand children, you need to assess all children including infants and toddlers. But there are challenges with infants and toddlers because you can’t do a one-on-one traditional assessment like you could with older children. They have short attention spans, they have limited language skills, so you are not sure what they are feeling or asking. The teacher must figure out what is going on. Despite the challenges assessment of infants and toddlers, itis very important and beneficial to assess them. The more you understand them the better you know why they are acting a certain way. You also see their strengths and weaknesses and adjust their learning according to their needs. Including the families in the assessment helps
Infant and toddler assessment is just as important as any other age group. I agree because they are learning just as fast as any other age group. Teaching and understanding children does not start in the school-age years, it starts from infancy into adulthood. So assessment is needed in the early years of a child’s life.

I agree it is harder to assess infants and toddler because they are not as responsive and understanding of what you are asking. You can’t leave them alone and just be a silent non participant observer. They constantly need your care and assistance. But if the standard way of assessing children is not working for infants and toddlers, then a teacher should have the option for an alternative approach. It should not take a director to make the call on using it in the program. It should be allowed for all centers and schools to use what works best for the children they provide care and teaching for. So the functional approach should be more known and used than it is. Even though it was only one’s programs experience in this article, it was proven to work really well for teachers and the
It helps a teacher better understand the child so they can help the child get to their individual developmental goals. It is important for the families because when they know how their child is doing or where they are needing more help, they are more willing to contribute to their child’s learning and what the program has to offer their child. But you can’t do the traditional assessment for every age group. You need to use different tools and approaches or you won’t be able to get a good or an accurate assessment. I understand that the functional assessment is more adaptable for infants and toddlers because it gives a guide for the teacher on what to look at, it allows the teachers to see the progress overtime, the child is able to be more independent in what they understand and not forced or pressured to do a task one way, and it gives the parents a role in the assessment of their child. Again this may not work for every age group but when you have a child who does not understand what you are asking and just learning many areas of their development, this helps the teachers and parents be the voice of that child through this type of