Development children and young people’s

a) Give an explanation of how children and young people’s development is influenced by:

- a range of external factors (poverty and deprivation, family environment and background, personal choices, looked after/care status, education)

- a range of personal factors (health status, disability, sensory impairment, learning difficulties)

b) Explain how current practice is influenced by:

- theories of development (cognitive (e.g. Piaget), psychoanalytic (e.g. Freud), humanist (e.g. Maslow), social Learning (e.g. Bandura), operant conditioning (e.g. Skinner), behaviourist (e.g. Watson)) External factors can affect the child’s development these vary and can affect more than 1 area of development such as poverty and deprivation can affect the physical development. Poor diet that has not enough minerals and vitamins mean bones might not grow properly, body lack strength and become ill easily. Child will not concentrate well enough and find it hard to retain information. After care such as poverty and financial instability mean not have things like computer to benefit school work and appearance such as clothing, shoes and obesity affect confidence. Not be able to get money to go on outings, clubs making them feel left out. Likely to be bullied, due to kids spotting differences.

Family environment and background can affect by alcohol, drugs cigarettes by family impacting on child such as parents smoke and cause unhealthy atmosphere, alcohol and drugs causing rows which distracts the child and gives negative influence. Not to mention the affect on pregnancy leave child with disabilities or long term health problems. If come from a family where English is not first language will struggle with picking up language and might not be able to help them with homework. If come to UK as a refugee from area that has seen extreme violence, natural disaster this may possibly cause psychiatric problems such as trauma and depression.

Personal effects such as health can have various affects missing school and not fully able to integrate with other students as student friendships already made so feel left out. May not able to participate in games and slow down physical development. If can’t walk, may need disabled toilet or hoisting so needs assistance. Kids tend to bully ones that are different and so can have strong impact on social development.

Disability can affect physical development such as participation in sports and games and make them feel left out and also stick out. Need adaptations to get involved with something which means could slow down how do something.

Sensory impairment can mean that struggle with oral skills if can’t hear struggle with speech as not able to hear and change what saying, attention and communication with others as they might not know sign language. If can’t see may struggle with doing games, reading and writing and may take more time as have to use Braille. I remember at college doing a communication task where we did a task where one blindfolded and other had to describe how to do something. It showed us how much a strong impact losing one sense is as felt out of control of what going around us.

Learning difficulties can have a varying affect and differ between people who have same condition. Someone with dyslexia may struggle with reading and writing as miss out words or letters yet other area excel such as Art and IT. Someone with ADHD will struggle with long assignments as struggle to keep focused and yet be able to do brilliantly in sports. Someone with autism can find iit hard to social interact with others in group activities and communication affected which may mean need to use makaton, yet be very specialised in one area.

Theories of development and frameworks to support development are always thought about when working in the education field as they give us a base line from which we work from. This gives us a main theme for which ideas are harnessed for helping children to develop. Such as Piaget Constructive theories, where a baby and infant will learn through five senses so in nursery we have items that use all five senses and make sure that items are safe if try to put in mouth as use mouth to explore things. When older have items that mimic what adults use such as pretend shop and kitchen and have loads of ways to use them.

When we look at behavior towards others we look to the social learning theory by Albert Bandura that children copy behaviors of main carer’s and therefore, we need well trained staff who are committed to helping them.

When we look at way they react to situation we look at things like Sigmund Freud and his theory about id, ego and super ego, the three stages the first being that start off with only id where think about own needs only then ego where they learn to think how they achieve there needs and then superego where learn about reward and guilt come together. In the nursery for the older children we have sticker chart where good behavior is rewarded with a sticker and at end of week big treat. This also ties in with the theory of Ivan Pavlov classical conditioning that children learn through stimulus like if get sticker receive treat and praise through his experiments with stimulus. Also skinner who worked on rats who pressed leaver got food. So humans learn that if do right get a reward.

When we look at stages of development we take into account the theory by Jerome Bruner that when infant cant make mental images only by action so we focus on items where can explore how things go such as blocks go in right hole, teddy bear with fastenings, blocks. We also take into account Iev Vygotsky theory that children learn from instructions and mimic adults. So an adult may show a child how to throw ball and they copy them. This is done all the time in nursery as we teach them actions to nursery rhymes and they repeat back to us.

Finally most important Maslow hierarchy of needs the fact we need to make sure our basic needs such as water and fed are needed to be met before we can develop things like morality and creativity. In nursery we give children balanced diet comfort and safe environment to help them carry out there development.