When I think of Child Development

Reading books to your child stimulates their imagination, expands their understanding, develops language & listening skills. Take the time to read to your child often.

This is my favorite quote!!

Testing for Intelligence...

In this assignment we were asked to answer the following questions:

Considering a commitment to viewing young children holistically (i.e., a commitment to "the whole child"), what, if anything, do you believe should be measured or assessed? Explain your reasoning.

In what ways are school-age children assessed in other parts of the world? (Choose a country or region of the world for which you have a personal affinity.)

What additional ideas, comments, suggestions, examples, and/or concerns related to assessing young children would you like to share with your colleagues?

Young children are difficult subjects to assess accurately because of their activity level and distractibility, shorter attention span, wariness of strangers, and inconsistent performance in unfamiliar environments. Other factors that may affect a child's performance include cultural differences and language barriers, parents not having books to read to their child and a child's lack of interaction with other children. Consequently, assessment of infants, toddlers, and young children requires sensitivity to the child's background, and knowledge of testing limitations and procedures with young children. Informal relaxed settings where the child can be as much at ease as possible are recommended when doing assessment. Assessing a child within the context of his or her community and the interacting social systems, and taking into account the family's needs, resources, and concerns affect both the evaluation and possible interventions.

When testing young school age children the examiner needs to take certain aspects into account. The young child's immature developmental status influences the responses to testing more than older children or adults. 

Other considerations, which are important, are the socio-physical environment and sensory integrity of the young child. I beleive they should be assessed on many different levels. I feel that standardized test can measure for he majority but what if that child is having an off week and doesn't master the test the way they should? This should be taken into consideration.

In England, The Government said a shake-up of the assessment structure for five- to 11-year-olds would be introduced to ensure schools are “identifying those who are falling below national expectations”.

It emerged that the existing system – which places pupils in different “levels” during primary education – will be scrapped altogether.

In its place, the Coalition has pledged to draw up a new grading structure in English, mathematics and science that will “recognize and reward the highest achievers” as well as picking out those who struggle the most.

Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

In this assignment, we were asked to choose one stressor that someone I know, experienced as a child. I will share how they coped or compensated for that stressor.

The stressor that I chose was poverty. She was a single parent of young children and living in low income housing and getting government assistance. Her daughter coped with this stressor by doing the best that she could in school for a while but after suffering through getting teased and made fun of at school she became a child of the very opposite that she used to be. She started getting in trouble for not doing her homework and being the class clown. This was her way of getting positive attention at school that was not paying off and would not reap good results for her future. Her mother was so busy at work that she hardly noticed that she was having such problems at the school and with her peers. The mother learned of her behavior and she realized that she had to make a change. She got back in school herself and sent her children off for one year to live with the grandmother, someone who could give them what they needed at the time while she got on her feet. The new lifestyle and school (environment) and the attention that her grandmother now showed her, got her back on the right track and she became the student that she had the potential to become all the time.

After about a year, when the mother had got on her feet, she went to get her children and learned how to become the mother she needed to be for her children and she had conquered living in poverty by going on and getting her education to make a better life for her and her children.

Her children did not know at the time that their mother had fallen into a deep depression due to the poverty that she and her children were living. This is normal for a parent living in a condition where they are not able to provide and give their children the life they deserve.

Low-income mothers of young children are at high risk for depression because of their sex, their low socioeconomic status, and their status as parents of young children. Furthermore, parental depression may increase the risk of disturbances in social, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical functioning among children. Little is known about the life circumstances and experiences associated with poor mental health. A present study investigated the relationships of social supports and everyday stressors to maternal depressive symptoms in a group of predominantly low-income mothers of young children, in an effort to
delineate the life conditions associated with psychological distress among this high-risk group (Dohrenwend, 1069).

Many researchers have addressed the concept of social support in terms of the quantity of support available.
However, an individual's perception of the quality of social support may be more important than the amount of support. Thus, it was hypothesized that the quality of primary intimate relationships would be more strongly associated with depressive symptoms than the amount of interaction with the social network (Moss, 1977).

I chose to research Africa and the stressors that children there experience. I found that in the past ten years, there has been increasing recognition that children who have been exposed to traumatic events can, like trauma exposed adults, develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Practitioners therefore need to be able to recognize and treat post-traumatic stress reactions in children. However, the direct application of adult diagnostic criteria for PTSD can result in the misdiagnosis of post-traumatic stress reactions in children, while research has only recently begun to investigate the effectiveness of different treatments for children with PTSD. The need for more systematic research on the management of PTSD in children is noted. At this time, they are researching and trying to decrease the amount of traumatic events to decrease the rate of children getting PTSD in Africa.

Since not all children (or adults) who experience a trauma will go on to develop PTSD, identification of etiological mechanisms and risk factors for development of the disorder has been an important recent thrust in PTSD research.There is some evidence that, as for adults, the risk of PTSD in children increases with physical proximity to the trauma and previous trauma exposure, and (due to biological and/or socio-cultural factors) may be greater for girls than for boys. Additionally, for children, parental trauma-related distress increases the risk of developing PTSD, since it affects the parent's capacity to create a post-trauma climate of safety and security and to emotionally contain the child's fear and anxiety. They are attempting cognitive-behavioral therapy in the cases that they diagnose PTSD now (Yule, 2010).

References:

Brown GW, Bhrolchain MN, Harris T: Social class and psychiatric disturbance among women in an urban population. Sociology 1975; 9:225-254.

Dohrenwend BS, Dohrenwend BP: Social Status and Psychological Disorders: A Causal Inquiry. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969.

Moss P, Plewis I: Mental distress in mothers of preschool children in Inner London. Psychol Med 1977; 7:641-652.

Yule W. Posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2010;13:194–200.