Chapter 4: Child Development and Developmentally Appropriate Practice
Overview
Have you ever watched a toddler exploring their world and wondered what they are thinking? Have you wondered how are they learning and what they will do next? The science of how children learn, grow, and relate to others is called developmental science, or child development. [GL]Child development[/GL] The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through adolescence] is defined as the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through adolescence.
Humans have probably thought about how children learn, grow, and relate to others since mothers started having babies, but formal scientific inquiry about child development has only been around for about 100 years, making it a fairly new science (Senn et al., 1975). Knowledge gained from child development science is helpful in building strong interactions with children to help them grow to their full potential. In this chapter we will focus on conception through about age eight. This unique age span has been determined by developmental scientists as the [GL]early childhood period[/GL] Ages birth through age eight], or the period of life in which the most rapid development takes place.
Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
- Describe how young children’s development can be conceptualized in four main areas: physical, intellectual, emotional, and social.
- Understand how children develop to support children’s individual developmental progression.
- Recognize how individual and cultural differences impact development such that development is not identical for each child.
- Identify high-quality classroom settings and practices that support individual and cultural developmental needs.
Key Terms
- Atypical development
- Child development
- Culturally relevant pedagogy
- Developmentally appropriate practice in context
- Developmental domains
- Differentiation
- Early childhood period
- Emotion regulation
- Executive function
- Fine motor skills
- Gross motor skills
- Joint attention
- Metacognition
- Neurodivergent
- Open-ended questions
- Reciprocal interactions
- Separation anxiety
- Temperament
- Toxic stress
- Typical development
Attributions
- Chapter opening image: image released under the Unsplash License
