Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Cooperative Preschools
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Language and The Brain
Sorry parents! It's been way too long since I've done a post. Here come more excuses, but I've just been so been busy with all that summer brings. This has included a class to fulfill one of my last credits to renew my K-3 teaching certification. Here's an assignment I completed as a parent resource that I just had to share with all of you.
Enjoy!
The experiences of infants and young children effect their language development, for this reason parents and early childhood educators can have great impacts on a child’s learning and development of speech and language.
A child’s brain has areas specific to supporting language. These areas of the brain become more developed and specialized as the child has experiences related to language.
There are times within a child’s development where speech and language development are ready to occur. Babies are born able to detect hundreds of different speech sounds, and as they grow older this ability fades.
Children are able to learn multiple languages at young ages as well. As they get older this ability fades as well. Children that speak more than one language may take a longer period of time to process language, and may speak those languages somewhat later than what may be typical of a child learning one language. Children that have learned more than one language may also demonstrate attention and cognitive advantages.
Do you often notice that you or other parents speak to infants in a different way than you speak to adults? This type of speech is often referred to as “motherese,” or “parentese.” This slow speech, which emphasizes certain speech sounds, is very beneficial for allowing infants to hear and process language.
So how do we as caregivers and parents encourage children's language development: we respond to the child’s communication and attempts to use language, we provide language rich environments, and we use language with children in a variety of ways.
Information gathered from Zero to Three, Early Development and the Brain.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Early Intervention
- Children birth to three years old who are eligible receive home/community based early intervention services. Children that receive early intervention services birth to three years old have what's called an Individualized Family Service Plan or IFSP, which includes a lot of information about the child and the goals early intervention will address. Early intervention at this age centers around the child's home and family. As of this time, Boise (and possibly the entire State soon) is moving to a "coaching model" of early intervention. With this model one early interventionist from a team, who may be a speech language pathologist, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a social worker, or a child development specialist like myself, would have regular visits with the family, helping them to address goals for encouraging their child's participation and learning during everyday routines and activities. Whenever needed any of the other team members (which will include one person from each discipline) will be available to do co-visits. This model utilizes current best practice, and puts in to place our knowledge of how we know young children learn best--it's been very successful so far!
- Children three years old until Kindergarten who are eligible may receive services with their school district. Children that are eligible for early intervention 3-5 years old will have an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP. This plan address pre-academic goals, to ensure that children can become successful in the school setting. For some children this may mean developmental preschool. These preschools that are actually located within some of our elementary schools look like a typical preschool. There are different centers for child initiated learning, structured large and small group times, snack times, times to play outside, and often time for library, music or physical education. The children who attend developmental preschool, often receive speech language therapy, physical therapy or occupational therapy in the classroom based on their different needs. Some school districts include typically developing peers in their preschool classrooms as models.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Choosing Quality Childcare
- Do an accredited program search on the NAEYC website
- Check out NAEYC'S and Zero to Three's information on choosing quality care at http://www.naeyc.org/academy/search/choosing.asp and http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_key_childcare_selectcc&AddInterest=1152
- Set up tours at centers, and don't forget to write down the questions to ask that you don't want to forget
- Then, I'm sorry to say, but get on the waitlists and hope for the best!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Feeding Young Children
- Adults should eat with children
- Adults choose what is served and how it is served.
- Children choose how much to eat
- Children need a variety of foods.
- Children should serve themselves
- Adults set the feeding environment.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Children and Television
- The American Academy of Pediatrics began urging parents in a statement from 1999 that children under two years of age not watch ANY television, or any other electronic media
- We know that studies have found a strong correlation between how much television children watch and increased rates of obesity and ADHD
- Research has demonstrated that children can learn from television after multiple viewings but that it takes much longer than interactive learning approaches
- Children in homes where the TV is always on are less likely to read
- Children are quickly spending as much or more time in front of a television than playing outside
- Is it possible for your child under two years of age not to watch television?
- If your child does watch television can you make sure it's only for brief periods of time, or can they watch television with you so that it's an interactive experience (plus, you can insure that the content is appropriate)?
- How often is your child playing outside?
- Is your television always running in the background?
- Does your child have multiple opportunities to look at books and listen to you read books?