This document discusses a session on child development theories and their application to early years education. It covers several key topics: - An overview of the session's agenda, including discussions of child development theories, how these link to assessment, and the importance of observation. - Discussions of several theories of child development, including genetic, socio-cultural, cognitive, and humanist theories. Specific theorists mentioned include Piaget, Vygotsky, Bandura, Maslow, and Bruner. - The importance of understanding child development for informing teaching practices and styles. Observation and ongoing formative assessment are also discussed as being integral to effective early years education.

1. EV681 – session 1
Julie canavan (jc145@brighton.ac.uk)

2. To date…..
• Pippa has introduced - Play and using technology
through play
• Sue L looking at physical development
• Last week behaviour lecture
• Week 1 teaching and learning – dispositions to
learning and characteristics of effective learning.

3. Today
• Child development
• Theories of learning
• How does this link to assessment?
• observation

4. Why study child
development?
• Time of most rapid growth and change
• Milestones
• Informs our role
• Understanding learning
• Interpretation of theorists
• Teaching style
. . . and research tells us that teachers with a sound
knowledge here are good teachers!

5. EYFS (DCSF, 2008)
Effective Practice: Child Development
“Development is the process from conception to
birth and beyond, in which the body, brain,
abilities and behaviour of the infant, child and
adult become more complex, and continue to
mature through life”
“Learning is the acquisition of knowledge,
abilities and skills; early learning is closely linked
with growth and development”

6. Holistic Development – The whole Child
Emotional
Development
Physical
Development
Language
Development
Social
Developm
ent
Spiritual
Development
Intellectual
Development

7. What are the determining
factors?
• Development is a holistic process where all areas
are integrated and interact
• This interaction results in individuality
• Children develop as part of a system – a family
within a culture and which is part of society. This
has a profound effect on emotional and social
development

8. The genetic theory
• We are born with a personality which determines
how we respond and behave. This is inherited, as
are our temperament, sociability, emotional
responses and intelligence
• This is sometimes affected by chemical changes
in the body
• Our disposition and development are pre-determined

9. Socio-cultural theory
• We learn, and so develop, according to our
experiences
• Babies are born with primitive reflexes but not
with any instinctive, automatic behaviour
• The environment is of the greatest importance in
determining how children develop emotionally

10. Research
Powerful maturational
timetables
Emergence of
language
Powerful internal
force to learn
Attachment,
temperament?
Diet, exercise,
exploration, safe
environment
Stimulation and
encouragement
Influence of the
environment,
relationships,
security, basic needs
Motor
Cognitive
Affective
Nurture Nature

11. Embodiment theories

12. Emotional Regulation...
• Very early on babies cannot manage their own
feelings, they just feel.
• They learn that they can rely on primary carer to
have their needs met and therefore learn ways
to wait for awhile
• Children will become more able to regulate
emotions, but they will also test the boundaries
with their increasing need for independence
• It will still be challenging for children to deal with
different expectations around how to express
emotions in different contexts (home/school)

13. and links to the
development of attention
• Stage 1 – 1st year – high level of distractibility
towards dominant stimuli.
• Stage 2 – 2nd year – rigid attention on task of their
own choice. Resistant to interference.
• Stage 3 – 3rd year (Single channelled attention).
Attention must be fully obtained to shift to a
different task.
• Stage 4 – 4th year (Early integrated attention).
Children can control their own focus of attention
– need to look towards the carer to listen.
• Stage 5 – 5th year (Mature integrated attention)
Can perform an activity while listening to the
carer/teacher giving instructions

14. Understanding others’ feelings
• Requires both cognitive skill and social
information
• Need to identify body signals, including facial
expressions
• Need to understand various kinds of emotions
and that it’s possible for people to feel several
emotions at the same time

15. Stages in the development of
Empathy (Hoffman in Bee and Boyd, 2010: )
• Global Empathy – observed during 1st year –
matched emotions.
• Egocentric Empathy – 12-18 months – when
children have developed a sense of themselves -
respond with same emotion, but may try to ‘cure’
the problem with something that would work to
comfort them.
• Empathy for another’s feelings – age 2-3 years –
children note other’s feelings, partially match
them and respond.

16. “If we want children to
develop . . . a strong
moral code for
themselves then their
behaviour must come
from the pull of their
own conscience
rather than simply
from complying with
being told to do
something.”
Dowling, M (2000, p89)

17. Behaviour - Key
principles
• Behaviour can change
• Behaviour has a function
• What we do affects
what children do

18. Challenging behaviour or . . . ?
• Anxiety - almost always present within children who
present as a challenge
• Speech and Language Difficulties - 95% of
challenging children will have a speech and
language difficulty
• Mental Health Difficulties – increase in diagnosis in
under 5s
• Alienation - a young child who feels that they are
different or do not belong will find it very hard to
form solid friendships.

19. Creating a
positive learning environment
Rewards
Respect
Routines
Rules
Relationships
Dweck: intrinsic
motivation

20. Attachment
(see Bowlby; Ainsworth; Main; etc)
Proximity
Key factors
maintenance
Safe haven
Attachment
Secure
base
Separation
distress

21. Attachment
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnFKaaOSPmk
&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js2XdP9FL5Q&f
eature=fvwrel

22. Psychosocial development
(Erikson, 1968)

23. Resilient children
“Resilient children are better equipped to resist
stress and adversity, cope with change and
uncertainty, and to recover faster and more
completely from traumatic events or episodes.”
(Newman and Blackburn, 2004)

24. What helps us understand children’s
learning and development?
• Theorists
• Ideologies/theories
• Research
• Assessment (observation)
• Experience

26. behaviourists
• Pavlov
• Experiments with Dogs saliva and the digestion of food
• ‘classical conditioning’.. Learning is equated with changes in
behaviour
• Skinner
• Pigeons ..light switches and food .
• Here the learning is based on a reaction to the environment and as
such has more useful links to a learning situation
• Thorndike
• Cats learning to escape from a box ‘Trial and error’ learning
• Extinction occurs when a response decreases in frequency
because it no longer leads to reinforcement (Ormrod, 2008,p67)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b-NaoWUowQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhvaSEJtOV8&feature=related

27. Summary
• Environment is key to learning
• Reinforcement is achieved by rewarding
appropriate/desired behaviour
• Concept of reinforcement central to Behaviourist
approaches and likened to motivation
• Therefore in a behaviourist world motivation by
definition is external where learning gets
encouraged by an external reward i.e. extrinsic
motivators

28. Social Learning Theory
• How much of what we learn, do and feel is
influenced by other people close to us?
• Albert Bandura (1961) was a social psychologist
who was interested in this process and set about
trying to explain it.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_bandura.htm

29. Social Learning Theory
• Bandura felt that behaviour is learnt from the
environment through the process of observational
learning.
• Bandura documentary and explanation of Bobo
doll experiment:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zerCK0lRjp8

30. Cognitive overview
• Active learner who participates in the learning
process
• Acknowledgment of learners prior knowledge
• Use of teaching strategies to organise learning
• New ideas introduced through series of building
blocks

31. Cognitive developmental psychologist
• For Piaget, assimilation,
accommodation and
equilibration are the
“engines” of intellectual
development
• Assimilation – children
absorb experiences into
what they already know
• Accommodation –
children need to change
and adjust what they
already know in order to
take in something that
does not fit
(Bruce, 2005)
Piaget (1896 – 1980)

32. Developing schema
Beaver p133
Experiments with arch
Shaped bricks
assimilation & accommodation
Adaptation
Equilibrium
Experiments with
plastic bricks in play
Accommodation & assimilation
disequilibrium
Adaptation
Disequilibrium
Arch shaped
bricks
Schema
Equilibrium
Schema
Equilibrium
Bricks are wooden & cuboid
Includes arch shaped
bricks in play
Bricks are wooden, cuboid
& arch shaped
Plastic bricks
Includes plastic
bricks in play
Bricks are wooden,
Arch shaped,cuboid
&
plastic

33. • More recent neuroscience studies have shown how
the brain is more active when mistakes are made –
more learning taking place?

34. Stages of Development
The sensorimotor period
birth to about 24 months
Pre-operational thought
24 months to 7 years
Concrete operational period
7 to 12 years
Formal operational period
12 years onwards

35. Object permanence
• Piaget said not fully
formulated 12-18
months
• Baillargeon, DeVos
and Graber (1989)
found object
permanence in
babies aged 5 and a
half months

36. Pre- operational Stage (2 – 7 Years)
Four main characteristics
• Ego-centricism –
• Rigidity of thought eg lack of conservation
• Semi logical reasoning or animistic thinking
• Limited social reasoning

37. Egocentrism
• 2 and 3 year olds will adapt play and language to
suit understanding of younger or less able peers in
play (Brownwell 1990, Guralnick & Paul-Brown 1984)
• 4 and 5 year olds understand that another person
will feel sad if she fails and happy if she succeeds (
Flavell, Green and Flavell,1990)

38. Pre-operational Period
Conservation Problems

39. Conservation
• Some studies have shown that it is possible to teach
conservation (Beilin, 1978)
-So operational thought may be present here
• More recent research suggests that children’s
thought is far more complex at this stage than
Piaget would suggest

40. Vygotsky
• Vygotsky believed play has a
central role in the transmission
of culture through social
interaction and
communication
• He saw learning in early
childhood as a complex
process
• Unlike Piaget he believed
learning leads development
• Social interaction between
peers and adults serves to
create meaning, making sense
and conveying culture
• Central to learning is language!

41. …every function in a child’s cultural development
appears twice: first, on the social level and later, on
the individual level; first between people
(interpsychological) and then inside the child
(intrapsychological)’ .
(Vygotsky, 1978: 57)

42. Three Zones of Development
• Vygotsky suggested that children (and
adults) have three zones of development.
– The Zone of Actual Development;
– The Zone of Proximal Development;
– The Zone of Future Development. (potential?)

43. Vygotsky and ZPD
“The distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by
independent problem solving and the
level of potential development as
determined through problem solving
under adult guidance or in collaboration
with more capable peers”
(Vygotsky in Wood and Attfield, 1996)

44. THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL
DEVELOPMENT
difficulty of task
competence of the child

45. Piagetian model V’s Vygotskian model?
For Piaget the child is a little scientist measuring
and assessing the world.
For Vygotsky the child is an apprentice,
learning to do things in the social sphere
with teachers and peers and later
internalising this knowledge.
While Piaget’s emphasises independent development,
Vygotsky emphasises the social nature of development
and sees learning as a collaborative process

46. Bruner
• This man is not merely one of
the foremost educational
thinkers of the era; he is also
an inspired learner and
teacher. His infectious curiosity
inspires all who are not
completely jaded.
Gardner, H. (2001)
• “scaffolding”.

47. Bruner
The Spiral
Curriculum:
• Learning is not a
forward progression
• Young children have
bursts of learning and
progress and may then
plateau or even regress
• Learning is impacted
by capabilities,
intentions and needs

48. Sustained Shared
Thinking (SST)
• ‘Sustained shared thinking’
occurs when two or more
individuals ‘work together’ in an
intellectual way to solve a
problem, clarify a concept,
evaluate an activity, extend a
narrative etc. Both parties must
contribute to the thinking and it
must develop and extend the
understanding.
http://eppe.ioe.ac.uk/eppe/eppepdfs/RBTec1223sept0412.pdf

49. Humanist
Key theorists
• Rogers: facilitative learning
• Maslow
Key concepts:
• Self
• Self esteem/self concept (change)
• Meaningful student centred teaching and learning
• Andragogy
• Self actualisation/natural eagerness to learn

50. Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs (1970)

51. Humanist overview
• Need to view learning from the viewpoint of the
student (contrast with Behaviourist: viewpoint from
the teacher).
• Students' feeling important
• Teacher creates growth environment
• Learning linked to self-actualisation
• Student centred/directed
• Acknowledgement of past/personal experience

54. What does the EYFS review say?
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-00023-2012
• Personal, social and emotional development
involves helping children to develop a positive
sense of themselves, and others; to form positive
relationships and develop respect for others; to
develop social skills and learn how to manage their
feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in
groups; and to have confidence in their own
abilities.

55. • What is the role of the adult?
• What role does assessment play?
• Activity?

56. Observation
“Observation is the foundation of education in the
early years. It is through recording and reflecting on
children’s activities and interests that we can
gather the information necessary for the
construction of an appropriate curriculum for them.
Observation is also the way in which we can
gather the material from which to make informed
professional judgements about children’s progress,
and about how to help them best. Observation,
assessment and the development of an
appropriate curriculum all fit together”
Hurst, 1991

57. • Observe AVA
• 3 prime areas
• Feedback
• Key issues? Parents/carers, gathering a breadth of
‘evidence’

58. revised EYFS 2012
On-going formative assessment is at the heart of
effective early years practice.
Practitioners can:
• Observe children as they act and interact in
their play, everyday activities and planned
activities, and learn from parents about what
the child does at home (observation).
(Early Education, 2012)

59. Why do we observe children?
Looking, listening and noting is important because it helps
you to:
• get to know a child better and develop positive
relationships with children and their parents;
• plan appropriate play and learning experiences based
on the children’s interests and needs, and identify any
concerns about a child’s development;
• further develop your understanding of a child’s
development;
• develop a systematic and routine approach to using
observations;
• use assessment to plan the next steps in a child’s
developmental progress and regularly review this
approach
(DCSF, 2008)

60. Observation, assessment and planning cycle
Reflect
Evaluate

61. What do you think
is important to record?

62. What to record
‘the focus of the assessment depends on its purpose’
(Dunphy 2008: p3)
As early years pedagogues we have to make the
case for what is to be assessed and how it is to be
done
• Accountability – govt, school league tables,
parents/carers,
• Raising standards
• Children’s progress

63. Katz (2011)
• Knowledge and understanding
• Skills
• Dispositions
• feelings

64. Keating (2002): p153
• recording Significant achievements – where
a child has
• achieved something for the first time
• has consolidated a concept after
demonstrating proficiency on several
occasions
• Demonstrated clear understanding of a
process
• What the child him/herself feels is significant

65. “So Progress is a bit like going up a mountain – if you
don’t sit down and enjoy the view at intervals, there’s not
much point in doing it” (Thomas, 2008)

66. What sort of observations?
• Target Child – observing and recording a
particular child
• Movement and flow charts – use a plan of the
environment to record a child’s movement from
one activity to another
• Frequency sampling – observing and recording a
particular behaviour
• Duration observation – observing and recording
how much time is spent at a particular activity
• Time sampling – observing and recording at
regular intervals over a set period of time
• Group observation – observing and recording a
group of children taking part in an activity – and
the learning taking place

67. Observations...
• Should be for a reason – are purposeful
• Should focus on what a child CAN do
• Should record what actually happens
• Should be objective and unbiased – the
observer should stand back from personal values
and beliefs (avoiding value-laden emotional
language)
• Observers should try to avoid ‘influencing’ the
child

68. What do you see? The
power of our language...
• ‘He was kicking-off
as always because
he wanted his own
way.’
• ‘His mum just threw
him in the door
because she’s a
working mum.’
• ‘She was whining.’
• ‘She’s arrived dirty in
the same clothes she
always wears.’

69. Some useful research links
• http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople
/earlylearningandchildcare/evidence/a0068162/effectiv
e-provision-of-pre-school-education-eppe EPPE 2004
• http://www.ttrb3.org.uk/effective-pre-school-and-primary-
education-3-11-project-eppe-3-11-influences-on-
childrens-cognitive-and-social-development-in-year-
6/ EPPE 2008
• http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/early-intervention-next-steps.
pdf Allen report
• http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110120090
128/http:/povertyreview.independent.gov.uk/media/20
254/poverty-report.pdf Field report
• http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/attachment
-supporting-young-childrens-emotional-wellbeing-2358
Attachment theory

70. Some useful reading
• Gerhardt, S (2006) Why Love Matters
• Bomber, L (2007) Inside I’m Hurting
• Dowling, M (2010) Young Children’s Personal, Social
and Emotional Development
• SEAL materials:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/2011080
9101133/nsonline.org.uk/node/87009
• SEAD materials:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/2011080
9091832/teachingandlearningresources.org.uk/coll
ection/24946