7.1: Developmentally Appropriate Practices

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Define developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) in early childhood education and explain their role in fostering healthy child development and learning.

Early childhood professionals have a wealth of resources to draw from as they plan ways to meet the developmental needs of each of the children in their care. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is the main professional organization for Early Childhood Educators. NAEYC defines developmentally appropriate practice as “methods that promote each child’s optimal development and learning through a strengths-based, play-based approach to joyful, engaged learning”. It is the job of early childhood professionals to make sure that our practice meets children’s developmental needs. For example, there has been an unfortunate trend for modern preschools to include formal academic content taught at a level meant for older children. These practices are not developmentally appropriate. Developmentally appropriate practice dictates that any academic content should meet children’s developmental needs first. That means that children are given opportunities to learn academic content that are in keeping with their developmental level – such as learning through play.

For a practice to be developmentally appropriate, it must consider commonality (how a practice pertains to developmental domains and a child’s age), individuality (how a practice considers a child's interests and needs), and context (how a practice addresses a child's social and cultural background).

References

This page is adapted from 5.5 Developmentally appropriate practice. by Blums & Holloway, S. in Julian, G., Boyd, B., Blums, A., Moon, C., Sharpe-Haygood, D., Karshna, J., Leek, S., Neimer, A., & Gill, N. (2024). (1.1 Eds). Introduction to Early Childhood Education. Libretexts.