According to (How A Child Develops - Development Delay) development delays usually happens when a children does not accomplish certain development milestones. Development milestones are various changes in skills through which a child goes through in child development. These development milestones should be attained in predictable time intervals. Therefore at a certain period a child is supposed to have learnt a certain skill. For instance by the period of 9 to 15 months, a child is supposed to have learnt how to walk. If a child of an age of 20 months does not know how to walk, then we may conclude that, that child is experiencing development delays.
However, development delays have quite a range of symptoms or signs among children. To fully understand the impacts of development delays, we must keenly analyze these indicators of development delays. These indicators are classified into four distinct categories that have major impact to child development. These categories include behavioral, gross motor, hearing and vision.
To start with, we have the behavioral signs. A child experiencing development delays may seem not to focus or be attentive to an activity for such a long period unlike other children in which children of the same age are engaged with. The children with this complication may also focus on some unusual object for quite some time. Children with this problem will find more ‘entertainment’ in these objects than interacting with their colleagues. They will as well avoid any eye contacts with their colleagues. Therefore, these children are shy to the rest. They will as well get frustrated in accomplishing simple tasks that children of their age can perform.
These children act aggressively and at times a teacher or guardian may feel that the child is somehow stubborn unlike other children of their age. This violent behavior may be persistent and may happen day in day out. This child will too find comfort by staring into space, talking to themselves or even rocking the body. These children will seek no love from their parents or teacher.
What are the implications of these behaviors to a young child and in the learning process? These traits may heavily negatively affect a child in a pre-school environment. An usual characteristic with children is their curiosity to learn new things. Unlike that, there is a child here who has no concentration to learning. Learning entails a lot of concentration from the learners to get the concept. A child with no concentration will therefore miss a lot of information from the teacher. A preschool teacher may feel irritated by a child who is not concentrating and so may act harshly on them. A pre school teacher must therefore take precaution in handling such children. This child will focus on other irrelevant issues that distract them from learning.
We have also observed that the child’s interactive part is affected. In a preschool environment, a lot of activities entail working in groups. The games, construction, they all require children to participate in various roles. These don’t find it comfortable with other children and may therefore miss some important skills. Children act in hostile manner such that they may harm others. Other children will avoid them altogether. These children feel isolated and have no love altogether. They will therefore live as deviants which may ultimately affect their learning.
The second category, which is the gross motor symptoms. There are various physiological conditions. A child will have traits such as stiff arms and/or legs. The child uses one side of the body than the other. He or she therefore has a limp body posture unlike other children of their age. In learning, children are expected to engage in various sports that require a lot of physical input.
Children with these difficulties will end up being fatigued in very short instances. This child may therefore not participate fully. This child may therefore feel frustrated for not engaging with others and may develop a ‘I can’t do it’ attitude. This child will grow up in a demoralized state.
Children with development delays also have some vision problems. This child seems to have a problem following objects with both of their eyes. They also have difficulties on focusing on objects and will therefore have to close one eye and use the other eye to focus on the object. These children usually have to find uncomfortable postures so that they can be able to see distant objects. There are abnormalities in vision as the children find the objects in not their appropriate sizes and colors. These vision problems may affect a child both in class and also in out door activities. A child may not clearly see what the teacher is writing and therefore literacy might be a problem. Children participation in outdoor games may be hindered too. Uncomfortable postures, and especially at tender age, may affect the child’s bone structure and especially the backbone which may lead complication later on in life.
A child may also exhibit hearing complications where the child may talk too loudly or softly. The child has to turn ears to the direction of the voice or a caller so as to get the message being passed on. This child will therefore find it difficult in communicating with their colleges. These children also have underdeveloped speech. They have sounds and words that are possibly not of their age bracket. Children with hearing complications may not get all the information passed on by the teacher. Hearing is an important sensory function and especially to someone who needs to learn.
The child too has deformed ears in shape. This may act as ridicule by many of their colleagues who may perceive it as funny. These children may therefore feel stigmatized which will definitely hinder their learning abilities.
All in all, development delays will hinder a child’s learning abilities in a very large manner. The child has some is sort of handicapped but is as well normal and will therefore be stigmatized by the other children of their age. Parents and teachers are therefore encouraged to take precautionary measures once they detect some of these complications among their children.
Parents are therefore encouraged to enroll for these early intervention services programs which offer support to families so as to enhance child development. If this is not done, these complications may not be corrected and may end up as scars to a child even at mature age and may therefore not catch up with those of their age. These children may even end committing suicide at teenage. (How Kids Develop)
In developing a curriculum for a pre-school class, educators must as well understand the development of the children. They must relate the curriculum to the development of the children. This means that, educators must teach or pass on skills that are compatible with the children. A curriculum should be in such a way that, children are able to understand what they are taught by the teachers. A good curriculum is one that considers starting with the basics. The basics are the foundation of education. The cognitive development of a child is such a process that requires systematic feeding of information. A curriculum should therefore emphasis on what is important for the children at the right time. A curriculum should be used to help a child develop but not to confuse the child.
Educators must be keen on various typical behaviors of children during their development.( Developmental domains, cognitive development, language development, early childhood development) In this case they must be able to utilize those behaviors in trying to enlighten the young ones. Most of these behaviors come as a result of domain development. There are four major development domains, these include the physical development. This entails general growth of the body structure. The physical development also includes sensory development which includes vision, hearing, touch smell, and the integration and coordination of these systems to the central nervous system. There is also the cognitive development. This includes the development of the mind, with the ability to think reason and even remember. There is the social development which incorporates the development of a child’s ability to interact with others. There is also the emotional behavior. The child starts to have a defined sort of trait.
In each of these developments, children develop certain traits that are important when developing a curriculum. At some age, children are very playful. Some parents get it wrong when they deny their children to play. Children also get curious about various issues, like for instance they may ask a stranger too many questions. Children too feel the need to make friendship with their colleagues. They feel that they want to have social groups. A curriculum should incorporate these traits to enhance the development of the children. (High Scope curriculum)
A good preschool curriculum, it must have at least have these important components to help a child develop in the various domains. One of the very important components is language and literacy. A curriculum should be able to enhance the development of language. The curriculum should also help the child be able to read and write too. This is the basis of education. A child should therefore be able to read stories and also narrate them to fellow children. A child should be able to scribble letters.
A second important component of a preschool curriculum is numbers. A child should be able to compare various numbers. This child should also be able to determine a greater number than the other. In numbers, there is need for experiments so that the children are able to recognize the practicability of numbers. Numbers is a very relevant topic for developing minds as the day today lives entail mathematics all around us.
There is also an important component which is creativity. Children should be introduced to drawing of shapes to represent things in their environment. Children should also be taught how to recognize objects using their sense organs. Children should also get engaged with making models using clay or blocks. This is a process of socializing the child to their environment. We recognize that growth is a process and it is necessary that curriculums have important components that are of benefit to children.
