Teach

Think back to your own childhood, your time raising young children as a parent or caregiver, or your time working with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, or school-age youth. What celebrations do you remember? What did you find most exciting or rewarding? Perhaps your answer is watching a child’s everyday accomplishments: first steps, first words, writing a name, reading a sentence, riding a bicycle, or making a friend. These memorable events; often called developmental milestones, are exciting. Developmental milestones are things most children begin to do within a certain age range. Developmental milestones are a guide. They help you understand and celebrate children’s development, but they also must be considered carefully. Each child develops at their own pace, and many of the behaviors that experts consider milestones are influenced by cultural expectations. For example, an infant who is born into a culture that prefers to keep babies off the floor for hygiene reasons will develop motor skills in a different pattern from a child who is born into a culture that prefers frequent "tummy time.” The goal is not for every child to develop the same way or at the same pace. Rather, the goal is for you to help staff develop curiosity about each child’s development, help them understand the patterns that they see across time and children, and help them recognize when there is a potential concern. Then staff use this knowledge to plan learning environments and experiences that meet each child’s needs.

Understanding Cognitive Development

This lesson provides a brief overview of how cognition (thinking skills) develops from birth through age 12. Staff members have received similar information in their own courses, so you can help staff members understand these milestones. Emphasize that each child is unique. Milestones are not rigid rules about when to expect certain skills or behaviors. Development is also holistic: cognitive development is influenced by language, physical, and social development. As highlighted in the Communication and Physical courses, milestones provide a guide for when to expect certain skills or behaviors to emerge.

Discussing developmental milestones with staff also provides an opportunity to challenge ableism. Ableism is a form of discrimination that favors non-disabled people. For example, an infant who is born blind will not meet the milestones in the chart below exactly as they are written, but that does not mean the child has cognitive delays. Instead, staff members must find meaningful and accessible ways for the child to explore with all their senses. It is also important to remember that developmental milestones should never be forced. An autistic child, for example, may not feel comfortable looking at faces or engaging in make-believe play, so staff should not expect every child to show every developmental milestone. When you talk with staff members about developmental milestones, remember to focus on what children can do, their strengths, and how they show what they know. For new staff who have relatively little experience with children, milestones can help them develop realistic expectations for children’s behavior. For example, if a staff member knows that a toddler typically can only follow a one-step direction (e.g., “Sit down”), they can adjust the way they provide directions. Milestones are helpful for considering where a child is and what experiences may help them continue growing.

Cognitive Development from Birth to Age 5

Infants’ and toddlers’ thinking skills grow as they interact with the world and people around them. As you learned in the first lesson, early experiences matter. Consistent, nurturing experiences help infants and toddlers make sense of the world. Those experiences literally build brain architecture. As infants and toddlers develop, they begin to understand and predict how things work: they open and close a cabinet door over and over, they fill and dump a cup of water in the water table, they bang a spoon on a highchair to hear the sound.

Because development is so rapid during the first three years of life, it is helpful to consider developmental milestones across the infant and toddler years. You will help staff members understand these milestones. Direct care staff received a chart about infant and toddler development in their own lessons. It’s important that you help them remember individual differences exist when it comes to the specific age at which infants and toddlers achieve milestones. As highlighted in the Communication & Language Development and Physical Development courses, milestones provide a guide for when to expect certain skills or behaviors to emerge. The table below is a comprehensive list of cognitive developmental milestones for infants and toddlers. A brief version of the information aimed at parents can also be found in an easy-to-use checklist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

During preschool, amazing changes happen in children’s “thinking skills.” Their memories are becoming stronger—they often remember surprising details. They can share their ideas in new and interesting ways. Their imaginations are becoming a primary vehicle for play and learning. They begin to compare, contrast, organize, analyze, and come up with more and more complex ways to solve problems. Math and scientific thinking become more sophisticated.

Read the table below that lists some cognitive developmental milestones during preschool years.

For more information and video examples of development from birth to five years, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Milestones in Action webpage.

Cognitive development is a unique process specific to each child, youth, and family. Many factors influence cognitive development, including genes, events during pregnancy or birth, and aspects of the child’s environment. A family may wonder about their young child’s cognitive development and feel uncertain about what they are observing and what to expect. As a trainer or coach, work with staff members to first learn from a family, and then to consider offering additional developmental information, including possible warning signs. The Kids Included Together website, https://www.kit.org, can be a valuable resource for you, as can the developmental milestones and Act Early information located on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/index.html.

Staff members may come to you first when they have concerns about an infant or toddler’s development. You should be prepared to discuss common concerns with staff members, support their engagement with families, and help them understand your program’s support systems or referral processes for additional services. The tables below highlight some possible warning signs that may be noticed during regular observations or developmental screening. If you or a staff member notice these concerns, you can share information with families about typical child development and let them know you are available to talk.

Ultimately, if families are concerned about their child’s development, they should talk to their child’s pediatrician about their concerns. Pediatricians can perform developmental screenings and possibly refer the child to specialists. Families should also contact their statewide early intervention program (for children under age 3). These programs will provide a free evaluation of the child’s development. This can help the child get the services and help he or she needs. This video, developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offers tips for identifying and acting on suspected developmental delays: https://www.cdc.gov/NCBDDD/actearly/multimedia/video.html

Cognitive Development During School-Age Years

School-age children’s thinking skills become increasingly sophisticated as they encounter new people, places, and ideas. They develop the ability to learn in abstract ways from books, art, movies, and experiences. They are able to focus and concentrate on tasks for longer periods of time, understand a variety of concepts and their memory improves significantly. You have the exciting opportunity to witness some children’s first encounters with formal schooling and to watch others learn as they move between grades and schools. The chart below highlights cognitive development milestones during the school-age years.

Cognitive development is a unique process and is specific to each school-age child. Sometimes school-age children may exhibit cognitive difficulties that can affect their learning and behavior. Some potential red flags for school-age cognitive development include:

• Lacking an understanding of basic concepts such as colors, shapes, letters and numbers
• Intense frustration by school-related tasks and assignments
• Inability to follow the rules of games or assignments
• Inability to stay focused and on-task

School-age children experiencing difficulties may not receive proper interventions, supports, or care from caregivers and other adults. We might ignore some behaviors because we think that they are related to mood changes that most middle and early adolescent school-age children experience. However, certain behaviors should not be overlooked. These include (Center for Disease and Control and Prevention, 2021):

• Excessive depression
• Antisocial behaviors, or the inability to relate to peers or fit into a peer group
• Acting out
• Difficulty staying engaged in an academic task

It is important to help staff recognize the difference between behaviors that might be frustrating to adults (e.g., listening to loud music, talking back, occasional moody behavior) and behaviors that are truly hurtful (e.g., excessive depression, antisocial acts, harmful risk-taking behavior). If you or staff are concerned about a school-age child's development, those feelings should not be ignored. Gather information and observations, brainstorm with staff, and work together to talk with families about your observations. Ultimately, families may choose to discuss concerns with a pediatrician or their local school district. This may result in additional supports for the child. Regardless of the families’ choices, remember that your role is to help staff create a successful learning community for each and every child.

Helping Staff Members Promote Cognitive Development

Staff members must use their knowledge of child development to work appropriately with the children in their care. Be prepared to teach staff effective strategies for facilitating cognitive development. When working with staff members in the classroom, observe as they engage with children to ensure they do the following:

There are some common struggles shared by many new staff members as they learn to understand cognitive development. Sometimes staff struggle with collecting and interpreting information about children's development. They may not understand how to make the connection between a child’s development and the experiences your program offers. Watch this video to learn from experienced Training and Curriculum Specialists about other challenges you might be prepared to support.

What can you do when staff members encounter these problems? As an instructional leader, you can help staff members understand how to make the most of the information they collect about children's development. Data is meaningless unless it is put to use! Staff might need your support identifying how their observation notes match up with developmental milestone checklists, learning standards, or curriculum objectives. They might need support learning how to plan experiences around caregiving routines for infants and toddlers, or they might need support knowing how to use what they know about child development to plan for the wide variability of ages in school-age programs. You can help staff members identify where children are and what goals are appropriate for them. While plans for different age groups will vary, they share some similarities. All quality plans, regardless of the age of the children, consider the interests of the children, the abilities of the children, and the experiences of the children. Teach staff how your program collects information about children's interests, abilities, and experiences. Make sure staff members know how to follow your program's observation and assessment procedures. Then teach staff members how to analyze the information they collect. What does their data tell them about individual children, groups of children, or the whole class or program?

Meeting the Cognitive Development Needs of All Learners

Teach staff members about your program’s commitment to serving all children and youth. In their own courses, staff members have learned strategies for meeting the needs of individual learners. Staff members will need your support to know how and when to use the strategies they have learned. Teach staff members to recognize the range of abilities in their classrooms or programs. It is critical to understand the needs of children with individualized education programs (IEPs), but it is equally important to understand that all children and youth need individualization. Help them consider and plan for the preschooler who needs an extra challenge, the toddler who is learning more than one language, or the pre-teen who sits quietly by herself.

Model

You help set the expectations for developmentally appropriate practice in your program. You can use the following strategies to help staff members understand the development of children and youth with a range of needs and abilities:

• Have a strengths-based approach. Begin conversations by discussing what the child, youth, or family brings to the program and what they can do.
• Focus on outcomes. Discuss with staff members the development and learning goals that are appropriate for each individual child. Then help plan experiences to meet those goals.
• Advocate for maximum participation. Recognize when a child is capable of more than is being offered. Make sure all children have the opportunity to challenge themselves and participate to the maximum extent possible.
• Interact. Talk to every child. Communicate that every child has a place in your program. Jump in and help when needed.
• Arrange for the staff member to observe others who have strong or creative methods for observing and documenting children's development.
• Model observation and note taking, then discuss how and why you recorded what you did about a child's development.
• Help identify other sources of information that can contribute to understanding the child's development.

Observe

Observe in classrooms or programs. Make special notes about children you see struggling. Also be sure to note children who seem to need an additional challenge. Look for signs that staff members understand child development and have realistically high expectations for children's development. Take a look at the following scenarios and think about what you would see, say, and do in each.

You play an important role in promoting the cognitive development of all children, including those with disabilities. You can support staff as they learn about child development. Understanding child development helps them plan and implement programs that support all children and youth.