Understanding Child and Young Person Development

Unit 506

Understanding child and young person development

The principles of child and young person development

Children and young people’s development is holistic with each area being interconnected. I always remember to always look at the ‘whole’ child or young person. You need to look at all areas of their development in relation to the particular aspect of development or learning you are focusing on. For example, when observing a young person’s writing skills as well as looking at their intellectual development you will need to consider the pupil’s: * Physical development (fine motor skills when using a pencil or pen) * Language development and communication skills (vocabulary and structure of language used during their writing) * Social and emotional development (interaction with others and behavior during the writing activity).

The basic patterns of child and young person development

It is more accurate to think in terms of sequences of children and young people’s development rather than stages of development. This is because stages refer to development that occurs at fixed ages while sequences indicates development that follows the same basic pattern but not necessarily at fixed ages. You should really use the term ‘sequences’ when referring to all aspects of development. However, the work of people such as Mary Sheridan provides a useful guide to the milestones of expected development, that is, the usual patterns of development or norm. As well as their chronological age, children and young people’s development is affected by many other factors e.g. maturation, social interaction, play opportunities, early learning experiences, and special needs. The developmental charts below do indicate specific ages, but only to provide a framework to help you understand the basic patterns of development. Always remember that all children and young people are unique individuals and develop at their own rate.

Stages of development

Infancy from birth to one year
Early years from one to three years
Childhood from four to seven years
Puberty from 8–12 years
Adolescence from 13–16 years.

Multiple attachments

John Bowlby is well known for his descriptions of bonding and attachment and confirmed the idea that all children need consistent carers to allow them to develop attachments and start to form loving relationships with their carers. If the period following birth is interrupted by illness in mother or baby, or is characterised by many different carers, a child may have difficulty in forming close relationships in later life.
It used to be thought that a baby could form a close attachment only to the mother, but this has been shown not to be the case. Children can and obviously do form strong bonds with a wide range of people, for example grandparents, parents, siblings, friends and others. It is regular and frequent contact that is important, and even where a child has a normal attachment to parents and family, it is important that in a nursery setting a young baby or toddler is allowed to develop an attachment to at least one regular carer.
A child who has formed close bonds with several important people will be far more secure than a child who has not done so. Where there is a strong sense of security in a child, there is likely to be less emotional trauma caused by future separations from the main carers. Often a very clingy child will have had some difficulty in the early years in forming a close bond with carers.
However, good attachments mean that when his or her main carer is not around a baby or child will show ‘separation anxiety’ through crying, screaming and, if old enough, trying to follow the carer. Separation anxiety will start around six to seven months and continue until around three years when a child can understand that mummy is going to come back! Part of this is the development of a concept called ‘object permanence’ – that even if you cannot see something it is still there.

Self-concept and personal identity

A child’s self-concept and personal identity are closely linked to the quality of parenting in their early years. Many young people and adults who harm others or carry out serious crimes have had very negative experiences as children and often have a very poor self-concept. Many psychologists have studied how we develop socially and emotionally. Some of the key theories are described below.

Freud
Freud identified three parts to the personality, starting with a ‘symbiotic’ relationship between a mother and child in the first months. Here an infant sees him or herself as part of his or her mother. This is one reason why a child of about 18 months becomes ‘egocentric’, or aware of himself as separate, and able to say ‘no’ and to be in control. As we go through childhood into adulthood we develop moral views and the ‘id’ (I want it now!) starts to be denied by the ‘super ego’ (No, it’s wrong.). As the ‘ego’ develops it helps to deal with internal arguments to produce an acceptable result.

Skinner
Skinner believed that children learn through experience or conditioning. A child will learn if they are rewarded for their behaviour even if the ‘reward’ is unpleasant. Positive rewards or reinforcements for good behaviour are the basis of many behavior management programmes.

Bandura
Bandura developed the idea of ‘modelling’ or social learning. Children basically copy the adults around them. Watch a tiny baby copy putting its tongue out if an adult does the same. The development of aggression was seen by Bandura as being a result of social learning. His experiment with children watching a film of adults hitting dolls was fascinating as the children copied it and saw that as acceptable behaviour. There is much evidence that a child who witnesses or experiences violence at home may develop aggressive tendencies.

Biological theory
Another theory about aggression is a biological theory. This states that humans need their own space or territory and that if that space is threatened they will react with aggression. Frustration is also seen to produce aggression; observe a small child who cannot do something he or she wants to – the result may be a tantrum or an outbreak of aggression.

Intellectual development
Cognitive or intellectual development is about how children learn, think and develop ideas. This is one of the areas of development that is strongly influenced by the experiences a child has. Learning the names of animals is only possible if a child has been told them. This applies to almost any knowledge or skill.
There has been a lot of research into how children develop intellectual skills. Two of the most well-known theories follow.

Piaget showed that intelligence is the result of a natural sequence of stages and it develops as a result of the changing interaction of a child and its environment. A child develops ‘schemas’ to help him or her solve problems in their environment. For example, all dogs are thought to be black if a child’s pet dog is black, seeing a white dog needs the schema to be changed.

Bruner believed that as children develop they use different ways of representing the world around them. Enactive represention involves them describing their world by sensori-motor actions – that is by using their bodies – think about how you might describe a whirlpool or a spiral staircase without using your hands or body! Iconic thinking describes pictures in the mind – think about describing where you have been on holiday to a friend – often a picture or painting is the easiest way of description. The final and mature stage is the semantic, when a child can use the full range of language to describe and discuss information.

It is likely that some aspects of each theory play a part in how children develop intellectually. What is indisputable is that children develop intellectually at different rates, and some in areas that others do not. Why some children become scientists and others artists is not fully clear but it is quite reasonable to assume that experience plays a large part as well as inherited skills.

What factors can affect growth and development?
Growth and development are dependent on many factors with some affecting some children more than others. The impact can be positive as well as negative. For example, the opposite of poverty is wealth and a child growing up in a home with no financial worries may be well fed and clothed and have lots of opportunities for educational development. However, these advantages can lose their impact if the child does not have a loving and supportive family.

Poverty
People who have less than 60 per cent of the income that an average person expects may be considered to be at risk of poverty and social exclusion. In 2001 an estimated 10.7 million people (18 per cent of the population) in Britain lived on or below the 60 per cent of average earnings poverty line whereas in 1979 only 4.4 million people were estimated to live in poverty. The number of people who can be considered to be poor increased dramatically between 1985 and the early 1990s. The proportion of people with low income (18 per cent of the population) has remained the same for the last few years.
Key groups of people who have to live on very little money include one parent families, people who are unemployed, elderly people, people who are sick or disabled, single earners and unskilled couples.

Families who are poor may have enough money for food, for some clothes and for heating, but poverty means that there is little money for interesting purchases and exciting lifestyles. Families who depend on benefits have limited life choices. The latest clothes, safe reliable cars, the latest electronic equipment, holidays and so on, may not be choices for people on low incomes. Families with little money have to restrict what they can buy when they visit a supermarket or shopping centre.
In 1999 the government published a report called ‘Opportunity for All’ which states that the following problems prevent people (and so children) from making the most of their lives.

Lack of opportunities to work. Work is the most important route out of low income. But the consequences of being unemployed are wider than lack of money. It can contribute to ill-health and can deny future employment opportunities.
Lack of opportunities to acquire education and skills. Adults without basic skills are much more likely to spend long periods out of work.
Childhood deprivation. This has linked problems of low income, poor health, poor housing and unsafe environments.
Disrupted families. Evidence shows that children in lone-parent families are particularly likely to suffer the effects of persistently low household incomes. Stresses within families can lead to exclusion; in extreme cases to homelessness. cultural background expectations of different groups genetics effect of inheritance, e.g. height, skills social class impact of long term poverty, attitudes to educational development gender different rates of growth for girls and boys family background different expectations for development, love and support finances amount of money available for food, education, holidays health status long term illness, acute illness e.g. meningitis environment housing, pollution
Inequalities in health. Health can be affected by low income and a range of socio-economic factors such as access to good-quality health services and shops selling good-quality food at affordable prices.
Poor housing. This directly affects people’s quality of life and leads to a range of physical and mental health problems, and can cause difficulties for children trying to do homework.
Poor neighbourhoods. The most deprived areas suffer from a combination of poor housing, high rates of crime, unemployment, poor health and family disruption.

Environment
Low income and poor housing are a source of stress to many people. In general, people with money appear to have fewer problems compared with people who live in low income areas. Living in the suburbs or in the country may also cause less stress than living ‘in town

Lone-parent families
Nearly a quarter of all families with dependent children are lone-parent families. Twenty per cent of families with dependent children are loneparent families led by a lone mother, with just 2 per cent led by a lone father. While some lone-parent families may be well off, many are disadvantaged. A family expenditure survey in 2000 showed that twice as many lone-parent families live on low incomes compared with couples with dependent children. Many lone parents rely on benefits or receive low income wages.

Adult expectations
Encouragement from parents is important in how well a child develops and most parents provide motivation for their children to develop to their potential. However, over-ambitious parental expectations can have a negative impact on development as well.

Effects of disability or sensory impairment
Disability and sensory impairment, for example loss of sight or hearing, can delay development in some children. This is because an essential part of the whole picture of development may be missing. If you think about how important hearing speech is before a child can talk, it is not surprising that communication skills may be delayed. Multi-agency child development centres work with children who have some form of disability to help to promote their development.

Promoting growth and development
There has been a lot of political activity in recent years aimed at reducing the number of children living in poverty and in reducing the impact of poverty on child development and life chances. Sure Start is one of the best known of these and its remit is to develop children’s centres in areas of poverty and deprivation. A number of services aimed at helping children – from education, health and social services – work together with families to improve children’s futures. Recent governments have finally recognised the impact of economic well being and other factors on a child’s development. There have been many programmes and developments to support families and to help children to move to a more equitable situation.

Planning
Children need support and help to encourage their development in all the areas. The role of adults is to support the children in developing skills. This support is not possible without careful planning. Good planning is based on a thorough understanding of the needs of all the children and YP involved. All the planning and preparation involved in an activity will be wasted if you have not thought about a vital question: have the children reached the required stage of development, and do they possess the skills necessary to take part in and enjoy the activity? A good understanding of child development and observation of children playing and working will help to develop the knowledge needed to work out the answer to this question. Most activities are planned with the aim of extending children’s skill levels, but skills cannot be extended or developed if the child is not ready for that next step.

At Park Farm i assess, record and monitor young people’s development in a Variety of ways. This can be in the form of Review meetings where achievements are recorded and monitored to ascertain progression in many ways. The independent reviewing officer covers areas that have been highlighted as a requirement in areas such as health, educational attainment, employment, college, behaviour and contact visits. This provides care staff with the opportunity to ensure this criteria has been met before the next review. We use a graph that comes from what is known as a ARS criteria. The points gained on this graph shows distinct patterns of behaviours and educational attainment. This also aids management in possible triggers that may have affected our young people around the graphs in discrepancies. Regular contact with our own psychotherapist also aids management and staff to monitor a child’s progress within therapy as well as aiding staff to use tools to help develop a young person going through a difficult period in their lives. We use a daily recording book that allows staff to read back through in order to assess certain patterns of behaviour. However general observations are a big advantage to assessing a young person’s development. If for any reason management feel that a young person is not progressing to their full potential then a variety of service providers can be called in to help our young people. This could include educational psychologists, psychiatrists to play and music therapy. All serve as a positive tool in aiding our young people to develop healthy social and emotional skills/attachments.
At Park Farm and within all our other units our young people are assessed educationally to deter what stage they are at within their reading skills, writing etc. Every young person that comes to us will have a general outline of what requirements they need due to risks they pose to others, themselves and so forth. If for any reason a young person is showing signs of not coping, bullying, unusual behaviours then a referral will be made to the relevant people in order to help and support our young people. I will always seek information for past carers, parents, social workers and psychologists to get an idea of behaviours expressed towards them, this enables me to observe for further patterns of abnormal behaviours. I also speak with my young person if they feel they would like more specialised help. In some cases my young people have expressed a need to talk to a therapist.
In the past i have referred my young person to a psychotherapist for help. My young person was very reluctant for help from the therapist. However with encouragement and support from the staff team this young person expressed that it had helped but he did not realise at the time. This young person was able to talk to others about how he was feeling rather than bottling it up and expressing unsavoury behaviours as a result. Seeking outside professional help due to a young person appearing not to be developing at a pattern normally expected has served to keep members of the public safe as well as other young people and staff. In another instance we found an alternative way for a young person to socialise in a place he felt safe which in turn provided him with the social skills he needed yet not taking away his right away from learning and socializing with fellow peers.
It is important to keep accurate records to communicate with others as i have found that any information no matter how minor it may appear can assist psychologists in providing the necessary help to my young people. I keep regular contact with all outside agencies involved. I also write my own reports to assist others in their own assessment procedure. I have devised a different handover sheet from most other units to meet the needs of my young people. I included on this different factors that may of been triggers to behaviours expressed by my young people as it can sometimes not be apparent when an incident has arose but on reflection there could be a multitude of reasons why and not just down to development issues. I also provide a weekly report to social workers in order for them to also assist me in noticing anything out of the ordinary which they can notify me of so i can then observe and reassess. The main point to include here is the fact that consistent communication, observation, including the young person in decisions made, accurate recording of behaviours and educational attainment and listening are all skills that must be used in order to help young people develop. Utilising other professionals around you will also assist young people in development issues if the need were to arise. The need for regular health checks also serves a big factor to a child’s development.