Principles of child development and learning that inform
developmentally appropriate practice
Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early
Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8
Taken from website:
http://www.naeyc.org/about/positions/dap3.asp
Summary of Principles:
1. Domains
of children's development -- physical, social, emotional, and
cognitive -- are closely related. Development in one domain
influences and is influenced by development in other domains.
2.
Development occurs in a relatively orderly sequence, with later
abilities, skills, and knowledge building on those already
acquired.
3.
Development proceeds at varying rates from child to child as
well as unevenly within different areas of each child's
functioning.
4. Early
experiences have both cumulative and delayed effects on
individual children's development; optimal periods exist for
certain types of development and learning.
5.
Development proceeds in predictable directions toward greater
complexity, organization, and internalization.
6.
Development and learning occur in and are influenced by multiple
social and cultural contexts.
7. Children
are active learners, drawing on direct physical and social
experience as well as cul-turally transmitted knowledge to
construct their own understandings of the world around them.
8.
Development and learning result from interaction of biological
maturation and the environment, which includes both the physical
and social worlds that children live in.
9. Play is an
important vehicle for children's social, emotional, and
cognitive development, as well as a reflection of their
development.
10.
Development advances when children have opportunities to
practice newly acquired skills as well as when they experience a
challenge just beyond the level of their present mastery.
11. Children
demonstrate different modes of knowing and learning and
different ways of representing what they know.
12. Children
develop and learn best in the context of a community where they
are safe and valued, their physical needs are met, and they feel
psychologically secure.
Expansion of Summary
Developmentally appropriate practice is based on knowledge
about how children develop and learn. As Katz states, "In a
developmental approach to curriculum design, . . . [decisions]
about what should be learned and how it would best be learned
depend on what we know of the learner's developmental status and
our understanding of the relationships between early experience
and subsequent development" (1995, 109). To guide their
decisions about practice, all early childhood teachers need to
understand the developmental changes that typically occur in the
years from birth through age 8 and beyond, variations in
development that may occur, and how best to support children's
learning and development during these years.
A complete discussion of the knowledge base that informs
early childhood practice is beyond the scope of this document
(see, for example, Seefeldt 1992; Sroufe, Cooper, & DeHart 1992;
Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren 1993; Spodek 1993; Berk 1996).
Because development and learning are so complex, no one theory
is sufficient to explain these phenomena. However, a broad-based
review of the literature on early childhood education generates
a set of principles to inform early childhood practice.
Principles are generalizations that are sufficiently reliable
that they should be taken into account when making decisions
(Katz & Chard 1989; Katz 1995). Following is a list of
empirically based principles of child development and learning
that inform and guide decisions about developmentally
appropriate practice.
1. Domains of children's development -- physical,
social, emotional, and cognitive -- are closely related.
Development in one domain influences and is influenced by
development in other domains.
Development in one domain can limit or facilitate development
in others (Sroufe, Cooper, & DeHart 1992; Kostelnik, Soderman, &
Whiren 1993). For example, when babies begin to crawl or walk,
their ability to explore the world expands, and their mobility,
in turn, affects their cognitive development. Likewise,
children's language skill affects their ability to establish
social relationships with adults and other children, just as
their skill in social interaction can support or impede their
language development.
Because developmental domains are interrelated, educators
should be aware of and use these interrelationships to organize
children's learning experiences in ways that help children
develop optimally in all areas and that make meaningful
connections across domains.
Recognition of the connections across developmental domains
is also useful for curriculum planning with the various age
groups represented in the early childhood period. Curriculum
with infants and toddlers is almost solely driven by the need to
support their healthy development in all domains. During the
primary grades, curriculum planning attempts to help children
develop conceptual understandings that apply across related
subject-matter disciplines.
2. Development occurs in a relatively orderly
sequence, with later abilities, skills, and knowledge building
on those already acquired.
Human development research indicates that relatively stable,
predictable sequences of growth and change occur in children
during the first nine years of life (Piaget 1952; Erikson 1963;
Dyson & Genishi 1993; Gallahue 1993; Case & Okamoto 1996).
Predictable changes occur in all domains of development --
physical, emotional, social, language, and cognitive -- although
the ways that these changes are manifest and the meaning
attached to them may vary in different cultural contexts.
Knowledge of typical development of children within the age span
served by the program provides a general framework to guide how
teachers prepare the learning environment and plan realistic
curriculum goals and objectives and appropriate experiences.
3. Development proceeds at varying rates from child
to child as well as unevenly within different areas of each
child's functioning.
Individual variation has at least two dimensions: the
inevitable variability around the average or normative course of
development and the uniqueness of each person as an individual (Sroufe,
Cooper, & DeHart 1992). Each child is a unique person with an
individual pattern and timing of growth, as well as individual
personality, temperament, learning style, and experiential and
family background. All children have their own strengths, needs,
and interests; for some children, special learning and
developmental needs or abilities are identified. Given the
enormous variation among children of the same chronological age,
a child's age must be recognized as only a crude index of
developmental maturity.
Recognition that individual variation is not only to be
expected but also valued requires that decisions about
curriculum and adults' interactions with children be as
individualized as possible. Emphasis on individual
appropriateness is not the same as "individualism." Rather, this
recognition requires that children be considered not solely as
members of an age group, expected to perform to a predetermined
norm and without adaptation to individual variation of any kind.
Having high expectations for all children is important, but
rigid expectations of group norms do not reflect what is known
about real differences in individual development and learning
during the early years. Group-norm expectancy can be especially
harmful for children with special learning and developmental
needs (NEGP 1991; Mallory 1992; Wolery, Strain, & Bailey 1992).
4. Early experiences have both cumulative and delayed
effects on individual children's development; optimal periods
exist for certain types of development and learning.
Children's early experiences, either positive or negative,
are cumulative in the sense that if an experience occurs
occasionally, it may have minimal effects. If positive or
negative experiences occur frequently, however, they can have
powerful, lasting, even "snowballing," effects (Katz & Chard
1989; Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren 1993; Wieder & Greenspan
1993). For example, a child's social experiences with other
children in the preschool years help him develop social skills
and confidence that enable him to make friends in the early
school years, and these experiences further enhance the child's
social competence. Conversely, children who fail to develop
minimal social competence and are neglected or rejected by peers
are at significant risk to drop out of school, become
delinquent, and experience mental health problems in adulthood
(Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw 1984; Parker & Asher 1987).
Similar patterns can be observed in babies whose cries and
other attempts at communication are regularly responded to, thus
enhancing their own sense of efficacy and increasing
communicative competence. Likewise, when children have or do not
have early literacy experiences, such as being read to
regularly, their later success in learning to read is affected
accordingly. Perhaps most convincing is the growing body of
research demonstrating that social and sensorimotor experiences
during the first three years directly affect neurological
development of the brain, with important and lasting
implications for children's capacity to learn (Dana Alliance for
Brain Initiatives 1996).
Early experiences can also have delayed effects, either
positive or negative, on subsequent development. For instance,
some evidence suggests that reliance on extrinsic rewards (such
as candy or money) to shape children's behavior, a strategy that
can be very effective in the short term, under certain
circumstances lessens children's intrinsic motivation to engage
in the rewarded behavior in the long term (Dweck 1986; Kohn
1993). For example, paying children to read books may over time
undermine their desire to read for their own enjoyment and
edification.
At certain points in the life span, some kinds of learning
and development occur most efficiently. For example, the first
three years of life appear to be an optimal period for verbal
language development (Kuhl 1994). Although delays in language
development due to physical or environmental deficits can be
ameliorated later on, such intervention usually requires
considerable effort. Similarly, the preschool years appear to be
optimum for fundamental motor development (that is, fundamental
motor skills are more easily and efficiently acquired at this
age) (Gallahue 1995). Children who have many opportunities and
adult support to practice large-motor skills (running, jumping,
hopping, skipping) during this period have the cumulative
benefit of being better able to acquire more sophisticated,
complex motor skills (balancing on a beam or riding a two-wheel
bike) in subsequent years. On the other hand, children whose
early motor experiences are severely limited may struggle to
acquire physical competence and may also experience delayed
effects when attempting to participate in sports or personal
fitness activities later in life.
5. Development proceeds in predictable directions
toward greater complexity, organization, and internalization.
Learning during early childhood proceeds from behavioral
knowledge to symbolic or representational knowledge (Bruner
1983). For example, children learn to navigate their homes and
other familiar settings long before they can understand the
words left and right or read a map of the house. Developmentally
appropriate programs provide opportunities for children to
broaden and deepen their behavioral knowledge by providing a
variety of firsthand experiences and by helping children acquire
symbolic knowledge through representing their experiences in a
variety of media, such as drawing, painting, construction of
models, dramatic play, verbal and written descriptions (Katz
1995).
Even very young children are able to use various media to
represent their understanding of concepts. Furthermore, through
representation of their knowledge, the knowledge itself is
enhanced (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman 1993; Malaguzzi 1993;
Forman 1994). Representational modes and media also vary with
the age of the child. For instance, most learning for infants
and toddlers is sensory and motoric, but by age 2 children use
one object to stand for another in play (a block for a phone or
a spoon for a guitar).
6. Development and learning occur in and are
influenced by multiple social and cultural contexts.
Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1989, 1993) provides an ecological
model for understanding human development. He explains that
children's development is best understood within the
sociocultural context of the family, educational setting,
community, and broader society. These various contexts are
interrelated, and all have an impact on the developing child.
For example, even a child in a loving, supportive family within
a strong, healthy community is affected by the biases of the
larger society, such as racism or sexism, and may show the
effects of negative stereotyping and discrimination.
We define culture as the customary beliefs and patterns of
and for behavior, both explicit and implicit, that are passed on
to future generations by the society they live in and/or by a
social, religious, or ethnic group within it. Because culture is
often discussed in the context of diversity or multiculturalism,
people fail to recognize the powerful role that culture plays in
influencing the development of all children. Every culture
structures and interprets children's behavior and development
(Edwards & Gandini 1989; Tobin, Wu, & Davidson 1989; Rogoff et
al. 1993). As Bowman states, "Rules of development are the same
for all children, but social contexts shape children's
development into different configurations" (1994, 220). Early
childhood teachers need to understand the influence of
sociocultural contexts on learning, recognize children's
developing competence, and accept a variety of ways for children
to express their developmental achievements (Vygotsky 1978;
Wertsch 1985; Forman, Minick, & Stone 1993; New 1993, 1994;
Bowman & Stott 1994; Mallory & New 1994a; Phillips 1994; Bruner
1996; Wardle 1996).
Teachers should learn about the culture of the majority of
the children they serve if that culture differs from their own.
However, recognizing that development and learning are
influenced by social and cultural contexts does not require
teachers to understand all the nuances of every cultural group
they may encounter in their practice; this would be an
impossible task. Rather, this fundamental recognition sensitizes
teachers to the need to acknowledge how their own cultural
experience shapes their perspective and to realize that multiple
perspectives, in addition to their own, must be considered in
decisions about children's development and learning.
Children are capable of learning to function in more than one
cultural context simultaneously. However, if teachers set low
expectations for children based on their home culture and
language, children cannot develop and learn optimally. Education
should be an additive process. For example, children whose
primary language is not English should be able to learn English
without being forced to give up their home language (NAEYC
1996a). Likewise, children who speak only English benefit from
learning another language. The goal is that all children learn
to function well in the society as a whole and move comfortably
among groups of people who come from both similar and dissimilar
backgrounds.
7. Children are active learners, drawing on direct
physical and social experience as well as cul-turally
transmitted knowledge to construct their own understandings of
the world around them.
Children contribute to their own development and learning as
they strive to make meaning out of their daily experiences in
the home, the early childhood program, and the community.
Principles of developmentally appropriate practice are based on
several prominent theories that view intellectual development
from a constructivist, interactive perspective (Dewey 1916;
Piaget 1952; Vygotsky 1978; DeVries & Kohlberg 1990; Rogoff
1990; Gardner 1991; Kamii & Ewing 1996).
From birth, children are actively engaged in constructing
their own understandings from their experiences, and these
understandings are mediated by and clearly linked to the
sociocultural context. Young children actively learn from
observing and participating with other children and adults,
including parents and teachers. Children need to form their own
hypotheses and keep trying them out through social interaction,
physical manipulation, and their own thought processes --
observing what happens, reflecting on their findings, asking
questions, and formulating answers. When objects, events, and
other people challenge the working model that the child has
mentally constructed, the child is forced to adjust the model or
alter the mental structures to account for the new information.
Throughout early childhood, the child in processing new
experiences continually reshapes, expands, and reorganizes
mental structures (Piaget 1952; Vygotsky 1978; Case & Okamoto
1996). When teachers and other adults use various strategies to
encourage children to reflect on their experiences by planning
beforehand and "revisiting" afterward, the knowledge and
understanding gained from the experience is deepened (Copple,
Sigel, & Saunders 1984; Edwards, Gandini, & Forman 1993;
Stremmel & Fu 1993; Hohmann & Weikart 1995).
In the statement of this principle, the term "physical and
social experience" is used in the broadest sense to include
children's exposure to physical knowledge, learned through
firsthand experience of using objects (observing that a ball
thrown in the air falls down), and social knowledge, including
the vast body of culturally acquired and transmitted knowledge
that children need to function in the world. For example,
children progressively construct their own understanding of
various symbols, but the symbols they use (such as the alphabet
or numerical system) are the ones used within their culture and
transmitted to them by adults.
In recent years, discussions of cognitive development have at
times become polarized (see Seifert 1993). Piaget's theory
stressed that development of certain cognitive structures was a
necessary prerequisite to learning (i.e., development precedes
learning), while other research has demonstrated that
instruction in specific concepts or strategies can facilitate
development of more mature cognitive structures (learning
precedes development) (Vygotsky 1978; Gelman & Baillargeon
1983). Current attempts to resolve this apparent dichotomy
(Seifert 1993; Sameroff & McDonough 1994; Case & Okamoto 1996)
acknowledge that essentially both theoretical perspectives are
correct in explaining aspects of cognitive development during
early childhood. Strategic teaching, of course, can enhance
children's learning. Yet, direct instruction may be totally
ineffective; it fails when it is not attuned to the cognitive
capacities and knowledge of the child at that point in
development.
8. Development and learning result from interaction
of biological maturation and the environment, which includes
both the physical and social worlds that children live in.
The simplest way to express this principle is that human
beings are products of both heredity and environment and these
forces are interrelated. Behaviorists focus on the environmental
influences that determine learning, while maturationists
emphasize the unfolding of predetermined, hereditary
characteristics. Each perspective is true to some extent, and
yet neither perspective is sufficient to explain learning or
development. More often today, development is viewed as the
result of an interactive, transactional process between the
growing, changing individual and his or her experiences in the
social and physical worlds (Scarr & McCartney 1983; Plomin
1994a, b). For example, a child's genetic makeup may predict
healthy growth, but inadequate nutrition in the early years of
life may keep this potential from being fulfilled. Or a severe
disability, whether inherited or environmentally caused, may be
ameliorated through systematic, appropriate intervention.
Likewise, a child's inherited temperament -- whether a
predisposition to be wary or outgoing -- shapes and is shaped by
how other children and adults communicate with that child.
9. Play is an important vehicle for children's
social, emotional, and cognitive development, as well as a
reflection of their development.
Understanding that children are active constructors of
knowledge and that development and learning are the result of
interactive processes, early childhood teachers recognize that
children's play is a highly supportive context for these
developing processes (Piaget 1952; Fein 1981; Bergen 1988;
Smilansky & Shefatya 1990; Fromberg 1992; Berk & Winsler 1995).
Play gives children opportunities to understand the world,
interact with others in social ways, express and control
emotions, and develop their symbolic capabilities. Children's
play gives adults insights into children's development and
opportunities to support the development of new strategies.
Vygotsky (1978) believed that play leads development, with
written language growing out of oral language through the
vehicle of symbolic play that promotes the development of
symbolic representation abilities. Play provides a context for
children to practice newly acquired skills and also to function
on the edge of their developing capacities to take on new social
roles, attempt novel or challenging tasks, and solve complex
problems that they would not (or could not) otherwise do
(Mallory & New 1994b).
Research demonstrates the importance of sociodramatic play as
a tool for learning curriculum content with 3- through
6-year-old children. When teachers provide a thematic
organization for play; offer appropriate props, space, and time;
and become involved in the play by extending and elaborating on
children's ideas, children's language and literacy skills can be
enhanced (Levy, Schaefer, & Phelps 1986; Schrader 1989, 1990;
Morrow 1990; Pramling 1991; Levy, Wolfgang, & Koorland 1992).
In addition to supporting cognitive development, play serves
important functions in children's physical, emotional, and
social development (Herron & Sutton-Smith 1971). Children
express and represent their ideas, thoughts, and feelings when
engaged in symbolic play. During play a child can learn to deal
with emotions, to interact with others, to resolve conflicts,
and to gain a sense of competence -- all in the safety that only
play affords. Through play, children also can develop their
imaginations and creativity. Therefore, child-initiated,
teacher-supported play is an essential component of
developmentally appropriate practice (Fein & Rivkin 1986).
10. Development advances when children have
opportunities to practice newly acquired skills as well as when
they experience a challenge just beyond the level of their
present mastery.
Research demonstrates that children need to be able to
successfully negotiate learning tasks most of the time if they
are to maintain motivation and persistence (Lary 1990; Brophy
1992). Confronted by repeated failure, most children will simply
stop trying. So most of the time, teachers should give young
children tasks that with effort they can accomplish and present
them with content that is accessible at their level of
understanding. At the same time, children continually gravitate
to situations and stimuli that give them the chance to work at
their "growing edge" (Berk & Winsler 1995; Bodrova & Leong
1996). Moreover, in a task just beyond the child's independent
reach, the adult and more-competent peers contribute
significantly to development by providing the supportive
"scaffolding" that allows the child to take the next step.
Development and learning are dynamic processes requiring that
adults understand the continuum, observe children closely to
match curriculum and teaching to children's emerging
competencies, needs, and interests, and then help children move
forward by targeting educational experiences to the edge of
children's changing capacities so as to challenge but not
frustrate them. Human beings, especially children, are highly
motivated to understand what they almost, but not quite,
comprehend and to master what they can almost, but not quite, do
(White 1965; Vygotsky 1978). The principle of learning is that
children can do things first in a supportive context and then
later independently and in a variety of contexts. Rogoff (1990)
describes the process of adult-assisted learning as "guided
participation" to emphasize that children actively collaborate
with others to move to more complex levels of understanding and
skill.
11. Children demonstrate different modes of knowing
and learning and different ways of representing what they know.
For some time, learning theorists and developmental
psychologists have recognized that human beings come to
understand the world in many ways and that individuals tend to
have preferred or stronger modes of learning. Studies of
differences in learning modalities have contrasted visual,
auditory, or tactile learners. Other work has identified
learners as field-dependent or independent (Witkin 1962).
Gardner (1983) expanded on this concept by theorizing that human
beings possess at least seven "intelligences." In addition to
having the ones traditionally emphasized in schools, linguistic
and logical-mathematical, individuals are more or less
proficient in at least these other areas: musical, spatial,
bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.
Malaguzzi (1993) used the metaphor of "100 languages" to
describe the diverse modalities through which children come to
understand the world and represent their knowledge. The
processes of representing their understanding can with the
assistance of teachers help children deepen, improve, and expand
their understanding (Copple, Sigel, & Saunders 1984; Forman
1994; Katz 1995). The principle of diverse modalities implies
that teachers should provide not only opportunities for
individual children to use their preferred modes of learning to
capitalize on their strengths (Hale-Benson 1986) but also
opportunities to help children develop in the modes or
intelligences in which they may not be as strong.
12. Children develop and learn best in the context of
a community where they are safe and valued, their physical needs
are met, and they feel psychologically secure.
Maslow (1954) conceptualized a hierarchy of needs in which
learning was not considered possible unless physical and
psychological needs for safety and security were first met.
Because children's physical health and safety too often are
threatened today, programs for young children must not only
provide adequate health, safety, and nutrition but may also need
to ensure more comprehensive services, such as physical, dental,
and mental health and social services (NASBE 1991; U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services 1996). In addition,
children's development in all areas is influenced by their
ability to establish and maintain a limited number of positive,
consistent primary relationships with adults and other children
(Bowlby 1969; Stern 1985; Garbarino et al. 1992). These primary
relationships begin in the family but extend over time to
include children's teachers and members of the community;
therefore, practices that are developmentally appropriate
address children's physical, social, and emotional needs as well
as their intellectual development. |
