Assignment – Unit 1: Child and Young Person Development

The expected pattern starts at 0-3 years where a child is expected to develop the most. They have little control over their bodies at 0-1 years and are dependent on their natural instincts eg: sucking, grasping.

* The baby turns its head towards light and stares at bright and shiny objects (1 month old)

2.1 Explain how children and young people’s development is influenced by a range of personal factors

All children and young people develop at different rates, but the order which they advance in differs very little. Children’s development tends to progress from head to toe, inner to outer, from simple to complex and from general to specific.

Early identification of speech, language or communication delay is important for a child or young persons’ well-being. All practitioners have a responsibility to identify children’s needs and intervene with appropriate support as early as possible, to help children achieve the goals of ‘Every Child Matters’ and progress towards the Early Learning Goals. The importance of early language and communication skills for children’s later achievements is now well documented and the need to provide support for children at this early stage is so that they can achieve their full potential. This means recognising a child’s difficulty quickly:

The aspects of development are defined as Physical, Social & Emotional, Language and Intellectual. There are different stages of development for each category, 0-3 years, 3-7 years, 7-12 years and 12-19 years.

The guide below explains what you might expect from the development of the child through various ages:

| * Usually born around 40 weeks gestation * Has swallowing and sucking reflex * Has rooting reflex * Has grasp reflex * Walking or standing reflex * Gaining about 5-7 ounces per week * Growth about 5cms by age 2 months

These involve the small muscles of the body used for hand –eye co-ordination, writing and grasping of small objects.

From 9 months – 3 years babies will learn to walk, run, jump and hop using their gross motor skills. They have more control over their movements allowing them to point, hold small objects using the fine pincer grasp and gain more independence in toilet training.

Between six and seven years old, a child can skip, climb confidently and jump from a height. Not only can they pedal on a bike, now they can ride it. Forming letters has now developed so that the child can write and instead of sewing a few stitches, they can now thread a needle too. Dressing themselves has become easier as they can now do up their own buttons and lace their shoes.

CAF and the pre-caf are also assessment methods for identifying & meeting invididual needs where your service provision works in partnership with outside agencies.

Babies at this stage are able to crawl, sit without much support and therefore becoming

When looking at and discussing a child’s development, you have to remember that all children are different and grow at different rates. Every child will follow the same sequence but they may not necessarily do it at the same time as each other. For example, you could have two, 6 month old babies, 1 could already be able to crawl, and the other 1 may not have mastered it yet and may not until they are a bit older. You must remember that your child is an individual and not group him with another child and expect him/her to reach the milestones at the same time. It is important also that a parent/carer, teacher etc., know the expected sequence a child follows, so they can tell if a child is falling way behind and they may need to intervene to help them along.

For this assignment, my group and I researched the physical domain from birth until late childhood. In our presentation, we embedded the typical changes in children’s bodies and motor skills. Simultaneously, we discussed the atypical physical development in children. It is essential to know about typical and atypical development in all of the domains for early identification purposes, to understand certain behaviors that students may display, and know which adjustments need to be made to the lessons so that each student has an equal learning opportunity.