EC-K1: Awareness of the basic developmental stages within domains of motor, cognitive, communication, and social-emotional development for infants and young children ages birth to 5.

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Summary

Knowledge about early childhood development forms the foundation for all the knowledge and skills to be covered in the early childhood units. As a paraprofessional in an early childhood setting, it is critically important that you understand the basic principles and domains of early child development. In this unit, you have learned that typical child development is cumulative and involves a variety of stages that usually occur in a predictable sequence. This sequence of development takes place across five developmental domains: motor, cognitive, social-emotional, language, and adaptive behavior. It is important to remember that the domains are strongly interrelated, and that each child’s development is influenced by his or her individual characteristics, family characteristics, and life events. Increasing your knowledge about child development across various stages and domains will allow you to better serve the needs of each child you encounter in the early childhood setting.

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Information for this unit was gathered, in part, from the following resources:

Bentzen, W. R. (1985). Seeing young children:A guide to observing and recording behavior. Albany , NY : Delmar Publishers Inc. Updated material and revisions are published by Thomson Delmar Learning and are available at http://www.earlychilded.delmar.com

Cohen, L. G., & Spenciner, L. J. (2003). Assessment of children and youth with special needs (pp. 378-396). Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Horn, E. M. (1996). Interventions to promote adaptive behavior skills (pp. 259-286). In S. L. Odom & M. E. McLean (Eds.) Early intervention/early childhood special education: Recommended practices. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Horn, E., & Childre, A. (2004). Assessing adaptive behavior (pp. 487-516). In M. McLean, M. Wolery, & D. Bailey Jr. (Eds.), Assessing infants and preschoolers with special needs. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Minnesota Department of Education. (1991). Model learner outcomes for early childhood education. Minneapolis, MN: The Minnesota Curriculum Services Center.

Parten, M. B. (1932). Social participation among preschool children. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 17, 243–269.

Rush, K. (1999). Early childhood:The role of the paraprofessional. Minneapolis , MN : University of Minnesota , Institute on Community Integration.

The Para eLink is sponsored by the Minnesota Paraprofessional Consortium, in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Education, located at the Institute on Community Integration in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota.

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