Thanks for Supporting my Blog

I would like to take this time to thank everyone who has followed and supported my blog. All of the feed back and comments were greatly appreciated. It is always wonderful to get the opinions and thoughts of my fellow colleagues. I would also like to congratulate everyone on completing the course. As child care provides and teachers, we have an important role to play in the lives of the children that we encounter. It is our job to provide these children with the best possible guidance we can offer. As we continue on our professional path remember "If your road of success doesn't have any obstacles on it, it may not lead anywhere". We have just jumped one of the many hurtles that life may have.

Again, congratuatlation to everyone and thanks for supporting my blog.

Module 4

During this module, I was able to sit in with a teacher who was using The Preschool Child Observation Record. This is an instrument used to provide systematic assessment of young children's knowledge and abilities in all areas of development. It is often used on preschoolers. We were able to monitor a variety of different categories such as Initiative, Social Relation, Creative Representation, Movement and Music, Language and Literacy and Mathematics and Science. These test were designed to interpret a child's behavior. This helps to create an accurate,useful, objective and comprehensive developmental  profile for each child based on what we observed in each category.

This teacher used COR on the child that we had been observing for potential ADHD. After getting the parents involved, we decided to let the parents come in and observed with the teacher and I. From here the parents were able to see how the child interacted with other children, how the child behaved by her self, and how she became easily distracted. Hopefully after observing their child, they would go further with the necessary steps to help this child.
This helps with my advocacy for developmental screening because shows why developmental screening is important in early childhood development. This lets us know if the child has a learning problem or disability earlier in his life, so we can detect it and help the child to get the necessary help they may need. If all the children are learning at the same pace and there is one child who isn't able to catch the lesson, we can detect the developmental delay.

Module 3

I have been focusing most of my time observing the teacher and psychiatrist observe the child who they believed had ADHD. As the days went on, I noticed that the child was behaving differently then before. The behavior of the child began to worsen and it was becoming harder to hold the attention of the child. The teacher and I did as much as possible to help the child. We began to wonder how the parents had did their part in helping the child as well.

After the meeting with the child's parent the first time about the possibility that the child could have ADHD, they were reluctant to take the necessary actions. The teacher and I tried our best to explain to the parents that in order to help this child, both the teacher and the parents would have to work together.

I couldn't help to think of the possible damage not testing the child could have created further down the road in the child's life. Had we not done the testing and never discovered that the child might have such disorder, who knows what might have happened? This could be used as an example of a benefit from Developmental Screening; early detection.

Observing and Interacting with Professionals, Children, and Familes in an Early Childhood Setting

I have sat in a classroom and watched as a teacher and psychologist observe a child who they believed  might have an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I noticed that teacher and the psychologist observed the child while recording notes. After speaking to the teacher, I found that the child exhibited behavioral problems that led the teacher and the psychiatrist to believe that the child might have ADHD. I then asked them both how would they present their findings to the parents. They stated that that they would call the parents in for a conference and discuss the findings. After speaking to the parents and working together as a team, we can establish a safe and healthy learning environment for the child.

From this experience, I have learned that observation can also be essential in determining what disorders a child might have. Early detection and prevention is key in helping a child to make sense of the world, of people, and things and to develop capacities to fullest.

Articles

Here are two articles I found pertaining to my topic.
One is about how they are now going to test kindergardern students and the other is about testing autistic children. The article about testing autistic children helps my stand on developmental screening.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-every-child-could-face-a-kindergarten-readiness-test-20110427,0,4245680.story

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-every-child-could-face-a-kindergarten-readiness-test-20110427,0,4245680.story

Interviewing Professionals in Early Childhood Developement

I interviewed a woman who has worked in Early childhood development for over 20 years. After speaking to her about early childhood development, we agreed that the children are the future of the world and that there must be more people to advocate education for our children. When I discussed several topic ideas with her, we decided that developmental screen would be a good one to focus on. One of the related topics she suggested that I focus on was the placement of children after the testing. She also suggested that I decide whether it is effective or not in determining how intelligent a child is. She mentioned how when it came to similar topics that her and colleagues discussed in the work place and how some teachers would comment on this child did this on the screening and the other child did that. She believes as well that you cannot determine how smart a child is and whether or not it needs help in a certain area from theses screening. 
My topic of choice is about developmental screening of children and its effectiveness. I would discuss why it is used in early child hood development, the process, how it is used to determine where a child is developmentally and why I believe that it is ineffective. I would also discuss how it doesn't accurately determine what stage the child is in learning.  At this point I am unsure of what else to discuss in this research paper, but hopefully the help of my class mates and what I have learned from interviewing.