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1.2: A Developmental Approach

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    a person lying on a blanket

    A Developmental Approach:

    This text was written using a developmental approach.

    A developmental approach is a framework emphasizing the continuous process of growth, change, and adaptation that individuals undergo throughout their lifespan, from conception until death (Katz, 2009). While this text is not going to encompass the full-lifespan, we will be exploring development from conception until children turn 3 with understanding that children are rapidly growing and changing during this time!

    In early childhood, we often talk about development with understanding of Developmentally Appropriate Practices, or DAP (Friedman et al., 2022). DAP is a position statement created by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, or NAEYC. DAP is a framework and a guide in order to help teachers working with young children to create opportunities for learning and growth. DAP was created on research-based practices, using educational theories to create an understanding of a child development approach (Sanders & Farago, 2022).

    When we are looking at DAP and what this means for our exploration of development, we will explore early development through the domains of development:

    • Motor (large/gross motor as well as small/fine motor)
    • Social-Emotional
    • Cognitive-Language (some will classify language as it’s own domain, while others will place these together. We will be exploring these together in this text. It is not necessarily to say that one is right or wrong, it depends on how you view and classify them.)

    While our text is aligned with DAP, we are exploring the development, and not necessarily practices, in order to build understanding of what appropriate practices are in early care and education.

    Investigate: NAEYC and DAP

    Use the following questions to research and investigate more about NAEYC and DAP in the U.S.

    • Why is NAEYC important in the U.S.?
    • What led to NAEYC creating a definition for Developmentally Appropriate Practices?
    • Why is DAP important?

    References:

    Charlesworth, R. (1998). Developmentally appropriate practice is for everyone. Childhood Education, 74(5), 274-282.

    Friedman, S., Bredekamp, S., Masterson, M., Willer, B., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2022).

    Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs: Serving children from

    birth through age 8 (4th ed.). National Association for the Education of Young Children.

    Katz, L. G. (2009). A developmental approach to the curriculum in the early years. In Key issues in early years education (pp. 25-31). Routledge.

    Sanders, K., & Farago, F. (2018). Developmentally appropriate practice in the twenty-first century. International handbook of early childhood education, 1379-1400.


    1.2: A Developmental Approach is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.