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what are some environmental influences for physical development in infants.

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i can understand physical development and care of infants.

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how do we care for an infants physical development during the first 12 months?

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i can understand physical development and care of infants

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Quizlet is a lightning fast way to learn vocabulary.

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i can compare emotional and social development of the infant.

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how are emotional and social developments of infants similar and diffrent?

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Social & Emotional - Infant Developmental Milestones - Children's Therapy & Family Resource Centre

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This area of development involves learning to interact with other people and to understand and control your own emotions. Babies start to develop relationships with the people around them right from birth, but the process of learning to communicate, share, and interact with others takes many years to develop.

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what is the difference between the jean Piaget and Erick Erickson theories?

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i can exemplify sensorimotor activities appropriate for infants.

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The MGH Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds

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By Steven Schlozman, M.D.

Posted in: Infants & Toddlers, Pre-School, Young Adults

When child development experts talk about the study of development, they have in mind some fundamental theories of development that were codified by brilliant clinicians and scientists well before we had the technology to correlate them to brain development.

In this post, we'll pay homage to these theorists. After all, every clinician who works with kids routinely and almost reflexively thinks of these scholars. The irony is that the theories are so pervasive and useful, that often the beginnings of these theories are lost in the story. Understanding how these theories came into being can therefore help to direct therapists and parents when they're deciding how best to understand their children.

Roughly speaking, these theories can be categorized as emotional, cognitive and moral. Erik Erikson developed the most common theories of emotional development. Jean Piaget developed the most common theories of cognitive development. And, Lawrence Kohlberg developed the dominant theories of moral development.

Let's look at Erikson first.

Erikson saw the world as a series of age-matched developmental crises, and he conceptualized these crises as binary and competing values. He didn't think of the crises as bad things; rather, each crisis represented an opportunity to move forward.

Infancy, for example, is characterized by Trust (a positive value) versus Mistrust (a negative value). Adolescence is a battle between Identity Formation (good) versus Role Diffusion (bad). According to Erickson, if these binary crises are not successfully negotiated-if an infant, for instance, can't trust the adults of the world to keep him warm and fed and held-then that infant will grow up with a fundamental lack of trust, and at some point, will have to actively address this issue. These ideas actually stem directly from the psychoanalytic notions that Sigmund Freud put on the map, namely that past experience influences future feelings and behaviors. Erickson studied children and adults, and he characterized each stage of development as follows:

Hope: Trust vs. Mistrust (2 years)

Will: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (2-4 years)

Purpose: Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool, 4-5 years)

Competence: Industry vs. Inferiority (5-12 years)

Fidelity: Identity vs. Role Confusion (13-19 years)

Love: Intimacy vs. Isolation (20-40 years)

Care: Generativity vs. Stagnation (40-64 years)

Wisdom: Ego Integrity vs. Despair (65-death)

You can see from the bold print that Erickson associated certain personality characteristics with successful passage through these crises. He called these characteristics values. The infant who can trust, develops hope; the young adult who can be intimate, develops the capacity to love. In this sense, Erickson created a mechanism by which different individuals can be developmentally assessed. The adult who feels ashamed is automatically thrown back to the age where she first experienced shame; as shame occurs at around age 2 to 4, Erickson would argue that the ashamed adult will more likely act like a toddler. And, an adult behaving like a toddler gets into more trouble. This helps to provide a roadmap for the clinician.

This way of looking at development has its critics. Many have argued that Erickson's theories are primarily Western, and as the world becomes more multi-cultural, one must be wary of the generalizations that Erickson's work might engender. Not all cultures, for example, view adolescence as a time for identity formation.

Gil Noam, an internationally-known developmental psychologist at Harvard, has noted as well that Erickson seemed to skip an important stage between the values of competence and fidelity. Noam notes that young adolescents, or middle school kids, are less concerned with who they are as individuals, and more with what group defines them-hence, the emphasis on popularity in middle school. Noam calls this the "Psychology of Belonging," and he has shown through numerous studies that young teens can be helped most by being made to feel that they belong.

Jean Piaget is the next theorist we'll discuss.

Piaget was more interested in how kids change the way they think about the world; that's why he is considered the father of cognitive development.

Piaget watched how kids figure things out. He noticed that when kids are teeny, they do lots of touching and tasting. From this, he decided that very young kids learn about their new world by doing simple experiments. What does that cat feel like? How does the side of the table taste? After that, he felt that children moved onto a more binary view of the world. He noticed that school-aged kids rarely abstract; in today's world, for example, four fouls is an out every single time in first grade. He decided, therefore, that young school-aged kids are focused primarily on a black-and -white view of the world.

But then he noticed that as that first grader moves through elementary school, her views of the world change; at first, four fouls is an out every single time. By second grade, four fouls is an out because those are the rules that are used to keep the game fun. By third grade, four fouls is an out, but that rule doesn't have to be; in fact, by third grade, lots of energy is used in discussing the possible variations in the rules.

By sixth grade, kids start to eschew the rules altogether. To heck with the rules, they say- We make the rules.

And just like that, Piaget noticed that with the onset of adolescence emerged the capacity to abstract. Think of the shift, in just six years, from "the rules are the rules because they're the rules," to "we make the rules."

Piaget categorized the way kids make sense of the world like this:

Preoperational (ages 2-7) - Lots of gray matter, much less white matter

Concrete Operational (ages 7-11) - White matter starts to connect in linear patterns

Formal Operations (ages 11+) - Gray matter decreases as white matter flowers

Of course, Piaget couldn't have made the notations you read above about the changes in gray and white matter; you can read about those changes here. But, it turns out the Piaget's theories correlate exactly with the neurobiology that he didn't yet have the tools to understand when he was writing in the early part of the 20 th century.

All of this helped to set the stage for Lawrence Kohlberg (he came after Erickson and Piaget, but actually worked directly with Erickson). Kohlberg decided that if kids move along their development both emotionally and cognitively, then they must also move forward morally.

If you think about it, this was pretty radical-do human beings pass through clearly-defined stages of brain development that correlate with how they make moral decisions? This was Kohlberg's question.

A review of all of Kohlberg's work is beyond the scope of this post. We can summarize it, though, and the best way to do that is to describe the story Kohlberg told all of the people he studied. The story is fictional, but not outlandish; it sets up a clear moral dilemma, and Kohlberg paid attention to how different people of different ages made sense of the story. He called this "The Heinz Story," and although there are many versions, the story roughly went like this:
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her: it was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium, and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but could only get together about $1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying, and asked him to either sell it cheaper, or let him pay later. But, the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug, and I'm going to make money from it." So, Heinz got desperate, and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
Kohlberg, Lawrence (1981). Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row

Kohlberg wasn't as interested in what most people said they would do; after all, he soon discovered, most people argued for stealing the medicine. Kohlberg was instead interested in why people thought that it was OK to steal the medicine. From asking thousands of people of all ages what Heinz ought to do, Kohlberg discerned what he felt were predictable stages of moral development. Not everyone, he cautioned, would reach all of these stages despite their age, and it was perhaps this conclusion that created the most controversy.

Generally speaking, Kohlberg felt that moral development was characterized first by a more or less amoral stage: you want what you want regardless of right or wrong. In fact, little kids don't even understand the concept of right versus wrong. That's why it doesn't make sense to get angry at a 2-year-old for cheating-they don't, and can't, understand the concept of cheating. However, after around age 3, kids start to appreciate right and wrong, but they do so as a function of external punishments. As kids age, Kohlberg noted, they move through different views of the concepts of right and wrong. They might start with a fear of punishment, but then they move to a desire for approval. Slowly, they make their way from external drivers of what to do to internal notions of what constitutes the right thing to do.

Kohlberg called the final stages of moral development "post conventional." By that he meant that people at these stages were deciding what to do as a function of their own internal compasses, and not as a function of how they ought to behave because of the conventions of their society.

You can see a listing of Kohlberg's stages of moral development here.

Here's why Erikson and Piaget and Kohlberg matter: clinicians consciously, and parents intuitively, use all of these notions in understanding kids. Teens, for example, should be working on developing a sense of who they are, and they do so by thinking abstractly about the many options afforded them. And, by engaging in these processes, they decide that the right thing to do stems from their view of how the world views them.

If kids veer from these loosely-predictable stages, we have to ask ourselves why. Is the child depressed? Is there trouble at school? Is there trouble at home? This is where clinicians and parents collaborate best when a child is in need.

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Theories of Child Development: The MGH Clay Center

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By Steven Schlozman, M.D. Posted in: Infants & Toddlers, Pre-School, Young Adults When child development experts talk about the study of development, they have in mind some fundamental theories of development that were codified by brilliant clinicians and scientists well before we had the technology to correlate them to brain development.

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what are the physical characteristics of a toddler?

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Matthew Giobbi, Ph.D.

Matthew Giobbi describes himself as an interdisciplinary scholar. His interest in neuroscience, psychoanalysis, critical theory, semiology, and media has taken him off the well-trodden paths of psychology, media studies, and continental philosophy, and into the thicket and brush that typically separates these paths. An avid reader of Heidegger, Fromm, Freud, Lacan, and Arnhiem, Matthew enjoys the swirling waters of convergence, finding unique analogical discourse between fields that can be, at times, hostile towards one another. Matthew's graduate education is in media studies, psychology, and music. He earned his doctorate in media studies from the EGS in Switzerland, his masters in psychology at The New School for Social Research, in New York City, and professional studies in music at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium. He also held undergraduate studies in music and psychology at The New School and East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. Matthew is an award winning educator in college and university departments of psychology and media studies. His teaching ranges from mass media, social science literature, psychopathology, media psychology, personality and social psychology, and critical theory/critical media theory . He has also served on two doctoral dissertation committees since 2009.

Those curious little creatures known as toddlers - children between 1- and 3-years-old - are leaving the immature infant stage, but not yet ready for the more precocious preschool phase. Typical toddler development includes a leap forward in motor development, increases in mental reasoning skills and the budding beginnings of social and emotional growth.

The celebrated child psychologist Erik Erikson described how the physical development of a child in his second year of life serves as the foundation for cognitive, personality and social development. As a result of the muscularization of the legs, the child is now able to walk and explore on his own. With the gross motor skill abilities to walk, run and climb, as well as the fine motor skills of grasping and manipulating objects, a toddler experiences less dependence on his parents and an increased sense of autonomy.

According to the Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget, children between the ages of 1 and 3 begin to be able to represent objects with words. Children of this age are able to think symbolically and to refer to objects that are not immediately present, however they are unable to see from the point of view of others. This "egocentrism," as described by Piaget, is evident when asking the toddler what someone standing opposite his viewpoint can see. The typical 3-year-old can only describe what he sees.

Dr. Robert Feldman describes the "rouge test" in which a dab of red makeup is placed on the child's forehead. By the second year all healthy children are able to identify themselves in a mirror and wipe the rouge from their face. Psychologists take this as evidence of a "self concept." A toddler's vocabulary is expanding with favorite words such "mine" and "no," as well as references to his self and to "mommy" and "daddy." This is taken as evidence that the child is "individuating" and seeing himself as a person separate from others.

With autonomy and the sense of self, the child is presented with the problem of social interaction. As Erikson describes, the toddler is managing his ability of both self-satisfaction, such as walking to a desired toy, and social manipulation, such as getting someone to bring him the toy. The social development for the child of this age centers on achieving a sense of self while struggling with feelings of shame for his individuation. This, Erikson describes, is a result of the parent who scolds the curious toddler in his "terrible twos."

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Those curious little creatures known as toddlers - children between 1- and 3-years-old - are leaving the immature infant stage, but not yet ready for the more precocious preschool phase. Typical toddler development includes a leap forward in motor development, increases in mental reasoning skills and the budding beginnings of social and...

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what is involved in the cognitive development of a toddler?

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what care is necessary for a toddler?

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Out-of-home child care for infants and toddlers, if done well, can enrich children's early experience. It can also be a therapeutic component of services to at-risk children, providing a safe and consistent base for protection, prevention, and treatment.

Unfortunately, although more and more children in this country are moving into group care at younger ages and for longer periods of time, we are missing opportunities to provide quality care. Indeed, current practices in many infant/ toddler child care settings actually hinder caregivers, children, and parents from forming and sustaining the deep, responsive, and respectful relationships that are the hallmark of quality.

In this article, we will explore six key components of early group experience: group size; quality of the physical environment; primary caregiving assignments; continuity of care; cultural and familial continuity; and meeting the needs of the individual within the group context. How these components of group care are addressed determines, to a large extent, the opportunities for responsive caregiving and caring relationships in infant/toddler child care.

Challenges to Quality Care

American society remains unwilling to take the profession of infant/toddler child care seriously. We have traditionally viewed the care of children from birth to three as a job done in the home, as part of daily life, for free. Despite overwhelming research evidence for the social benefits of high quality infant/toddler child care and family support, we are not yet willing to pay infant/toddler caregivers a living wage. We still demand that caregivers get their training on Saturdays or after the work day is over. Unless and until we treat group care of infants and toddlers as a profession and provide funds for training, careful staff selection, and supervision-as well as for worthy wages-we cannot expect to achieve high quality care.

Over the past several decades, many infant/toddler child care programs have been created by well-intentioned people who are unfamiliar with infants (often individuals who ran preschool or traditional child care programs). The result is caregiving settings that look like preschool-classes, yearly movement from one "grade" to the next, and few links with families' childrearing practices. Caregivers are seen as "teachers." Such programs tend to be too large and too impersonal for infants.

This is not the result of evil intent but, rather, a failure to understand the profound differences between a preschooler and an infant. Simply put, a preschooler has already formed a pretty solid sense of identity, with definite likes, dislikes, inclinations and attitudes, but an infant or toddler is forming his or her sense of identity. Part of what the infant gets from the caregiver is a sense of who that caregiver is; this sense is incorporated into the infant's own definition of self. The process of forming a strong positive identity should occur in a setting that offers security, protection, and intimacy. It doesn't happen in "school"; it happens in a continuing relationship with a caregiver.

In the day-to-day give and take of good infant/ toddler child care, children and their caregivers relate in a way that looks much like a dance, with the child leading, the caregiver picking up the rhythm and following. When a caregiver reads and responds to the young child's messages with sensitivity, the child's hunger to be understood is satisfied. The conviction that "I am someone who is paid attention to" becomes part of the infant or toddler's identity.

In order to create and sustain intimacy in group child care, we must address six key components of early group experience.

Group Size

We create chaos and confusion when we put too many infants or toddlers in one group, even with an appropriate number of adult caregivers. As the number of infants in a group goes up, so do noise level, stimulation, and general confusion. The group's intimacy is gone. Children look lost and wander aimlessly, not quite knowing what to do. When there are too many children, shared experience and discovery through play are inhibited. Smaller groups mean fewer distractions and children's activities that are more focused. In small groups, very young children are able to make connections, form caring relationships, and learn to understand other children.

For children not yet mobile, ZERO TO THREE (1992) recommends that group sizes should be no larger than six; the caregiver/infant ratio should be no more than 1:3. For children crawling and up to 18 months, the group size should be no more than nine, ratios no more than 1:3 (explorers are active and need a watchful eye). For children 18 months to three years, group size should be no more than 12, ratios, 1:4. Centers, group homes, and family day care homes with mixed age groupings should never have more than two children under two years of age in a single group.

Infants and toddlers with disabilities who do not require special medical support can easily be included in environments with this suggested ratio and group size. Children with disabilities are children first; the care they need is often exactly the same as the care typically developing children need.

The Environment

The physical environment-indoors and out-can promote or impede intimate, satisfying relationships. The environment affects caregiver/infant relationships. Carollee Howes discovered that in family day care homes in which dangerous objects and fragile prized possessions had been removed from the area in which infants and toddlers played, caregivers smiled more, encouraged exploration, and gave fewer negative comments ("Don't touch that!") to infants and toddlers. In an infant/toddler center, a hammock invites a caregiver to cuddle one or two babies.

The environment affects caregiver/parent relationships. A comfortable place for adults within the children's environment can encourage parents to visit throughout the day and can also be used to encourage continued breastfeeding with infants. A place for parents to sit comfortably for a moment at the end of the day acknowledges the parent's needs and encourages conversation.

When dangerous objects and fragile prized possessions were removed from the area in which infants and toddlers played, caregivers smiled more, encouraged exploration, and gave fewer negative comments to infants and toddlers.

The environment affects relationships between children. The amount and arrangement of space and the choice and abundance of play materials can either increase the chances that young children will interact positively with each other or increase the likelihood of biting, toy pulling, and dazed wandering.

The environment can encourage or impede flexible, individualized care in a group setting. With easy access to the outdoors, the daily rhythms of infants and toddlers can be accommodated. In too many centers, however, infant/toddler time on the playground is rigidly scheduled and subordinated to the schedules of groups of older children. Infants and toddlers need small amounts of food and drink throughout the day to support their emotional, social, and physical well-being. A child who is thirsty or hungry cannot interact successfully with other children or adults. A small refrigerator and modest equipment for warming food will allow caregivers to feed infants on demand and offer snacks to toddlers frequently. But too often in child care settings, feeding routines accommodate the kitchen rather than the child.

Primary Caregiving Assignments

The assignment of a primary caregiver to every child in group care means that when a child moves into care, the child's parents know, the director of the program knows, and the caregiver knows who the person is who is principally responsible for that child. Primary caregiving does not mean that one person cares for an infant or toddler exclusively, all of the time-there has to be teaming. Primary caregiving does mean that the infant or toddler has someone special with whom to build an intimate relationship. Primary caregiving assignments are an excellent example of program policy that takes the encouragement of relationships seriously.

Two vignettes adapted from ZERO TO THREE 's Heart Start: The Emotional Foundations of School Readiness (1992), illustrate the difference a special relationship can make to a young child's experience in child care.

The way it shouldn't be

Tim stood just inside the entrance to the playroom. He was sturdy for one-and-a-half, but short. The noise was jarring, and he looked around for the woman his mother talked to when they came in. She had said to his mother, "He'll be fine-I'll get him started," and she had taken his hand. But now, just as fast, she was gone. It scared him as much as the other time. This was not a good place to be. He wanted his mother and he wanted to go home. A boy bumped him hard, and Tim fell. He crawled over to that woman. He sat down and fingered some colored blocks on the floor. A big boy came and grabbed one and stepped on his hand. Tim yelped and cried and looked around. He held his hurt hand in the other and the tears ran down his cheeks. No one saw.

Two weeks later: Tim stood just inside the entrance to the playroom. It was very noisy. A boy ran past him and bumped him. Tim lunged for him and pushed him down. The boy cried, and Tim walked over to the blocks. He picked some up, and a bigger boy came and grabbed them. Tim gave them up quickly and then turned and saw a smaller boy who had some. He pulled them away from him. The boy cried. Tim looked at the blocks. He couldn't remember what he'd been going to do with them, so he threw them down. They made a very satisfying sound. He picked up several other toys nearby and threw them. Suddenly one of the women was there yelling at him and holding his arm very hard. She was saying lots of things to him, and now she said, "time out," and scrunched him on a stool. He tried to get up but she wouldn't let him. She waved a finger in his face. He thought about biting it. She went away. He didn't like this place. He wanted his mother. He wanted to go home.

What Tim is learning in this child "care" center is almost everything we would not want him to. He is important to no one here and must fend for himself, as must others. For some it's like home-for others it's newly terrible. For all, it is a potentially damaging experience.

The way it should be

Tim and his mother had visited the center twice in the last week. They had spent time with Mindy, who told them she would be Tim's primary caregiver. Both Tim and his mother felt comfortable with Mindy. She was interested in them, wanted to talk regularly about Tim's progress, and seemed to understand how Tim's mother felt about leaving Tim to go to work. To Tim, today felt much the same, but his mother knew she was going to leave him for several hours and had told him so. Mindy met them at the door, squatted down to speak to Tim, who smiled shyly, remembering her, and then walked with mother and child to the small rocking horse that Tim had so enjoyed the last: time. A small boy rushed by and bumped Tim quite hard. Mindy caught the little boy and talked quietly to him, introduced him to Tim, and sent him on his way. Tim got on the horse and Mindy sat nearby where a somewhat bigger girl was building with blocks and a boy was working with large puzzle pieces. Mindy attended to all of them in turn as they wanted her attention or help. These were her three, and she always kept a special eye on them.

When it was time for her to go, Tim's mother reminded him she was leaving today. He looked surprised and climbed off the horse. Mindy picked him up and said, "Let's go to the door and say good-bye to your mother." Tim wanted to go with his mother. But his mother really seemed to be going to leave him, so he clung closer to Mindy, who cuddled him and talked quietly. Then his mother was gone. It was like everyone in the world was holding their breath at the same time, but Mindy held him and patted him and talked quietly, and then everyone began to breathe again. Tim could see the toys and children, but mostly he liked hearing Mindy's voice. Ten minutes later, 'Tim was on his horse. He wasn't as wholly confident as 20 minutes before, but he could still ride, and Mindy was close by and always noticed when he looked at her.

Two weeks later: After his mother kissed him, Tim waved good-bye and then he said, "Hi" again to Mindy, who ruffled his hair. Tim made a beeline for the block area, but when he got there Wong Chen had corralled all of the red blocks Tim wanted. Tim squatted down and watched Wong Chen. In a minute, Mindy came over and squatted down too, and they both watched him. Then Mindy said, "Tim likes those blocks too, Wong Chen; would you let him play?" Wong Chen looked at the floor, and then he looked up and frowned at Mindy and then at Tim. Mindy said, "OK, Wong Chen, then Tim can use them later." And then to Tim, while pointing to some bristle blocks, "Maybe you'd like these? I don't think anyone has those." As Tim started to walk away, Wong Chen handed him one red block and Mindy said, "Thank you, Wong Chen, we'll use that."

...Later, Tim started to build a big car with red blocks, a car like his mother's red car. His mother was working. She would come later. "Mommy later," Tim said. Mindy heard him. "She will, Tim," said Mindy. "She'll come after your nap." "After nap," said Tim, and then he said, "See my car?"

Tim is learning a lot in this center, mostly very good things. He feels important. He feels heard and understood. He feels protected, and his primary caregiver helps him negotiate the difficult things with other children. He is learning to cooperate and to pay attention to what other children need and want. There is enough space, there are enough providers, just enough children, and abundant affection for everyone.

Continuity of Care

Having one caregiver over an extended period of time rather than switching every 6 to 9 months or so is important to the expansion of a child's development. Switching from one caregiver to another takes its toll. The child has to build trust all over again. When a very young child loses a caregiver, he really loses part of his sense of himself and the way the world operates: The things that the child knows how to do, and the ways that he knows to be simply don't work any more. Too many changes in caregivers can lead to a child's reluctance to form new relationships.

Continuity of care-or the lack of it-in a child care program has important implications for the group experience. A child with a new caregiver has to work hard to get her messages across. The caregiver can only guess at what she wants. There is confusion and stress for both child and caregiver. If a child deals with change by acting out his frustration, this will have an impact on the entire group. With a caregiver who knows him, however, a child can express need less dramatically. The better somebody knows a child, the more subtle the cues are that will inform that person of what it is that the child needs.

Too many changes in caregivers can lead to a child's reluctance to form new relationships.

Continuity of care is important for caregivers and parents as well as for children. When infants and toddlers are moved to a new room as they reach a new developmental stage, caregivers don't get to see the fruition of their work. Parents often experience tremendous grief when they first place their infants in child care. Trust in the caregiver builds slowly, as they realize that the caregiver is attached to their child, loves their child, and supports the special parent-child bond. With a change in caregivers, not only the child, but parents as well will grieve and have to build trust all over again.

At the Creative Pre-School directed by Dr. Phelps, one caregiver cares for three infants. Caregivers are trained to use every moment of the day to build trust with the infant and the family. Each infant is on his or her own schedule for feeding, diapering, sleeping, and playing. This schedule is documented for the family on an individual daily schedule form.

As infants begin to exhibit the need for more stimulation, usually around 12 months, the caregiver will begin to take them to visit the practicing toddler group. These children are between 14 and 24 months old. Visiting can be done with all three infants or with one or two at a time. (Because each infant is on his or her own schedule, there is much time for individual attention.) The adults in the practicing toddler area visit the infant room often, with the focus on building relationships over time with the infants who will one day be toddlers. The transition is flexible and centers around each child's building a relationship with the next caregiver. The infant caregiver may move with the infants into the practicing toddler group, or, if the children are comfortable with the new caregiver, she may move back to receive a new group of infants. This same slow process, focusing on each child's adjustment to a new environment, takes place throughout the age groups, including the movement of older toddlers (young threes) to the preschool program.

Cultural and Familial Continuity

If there is no one in a child care setting who speaks the child's home language, or validates the childrearing values and beliefs of the family, the early development of the self is threatened. Particularly for infants, what they sense from their caregivers is incorporated into their definition of self. If infants get subtle messages that their way of communicating should change or that they are hard to understand, both their sense of rightness about where they come from and their feelings of personal potency are shaken. Child care should be in harmony with what goes on at home, following the form and style of what is familiar to the child.

Self-reflection is key to culturally sensitive care, and caregivers should be schooled in it. By exploring their own backgrounds, they can see the roots of some of their most basic child care practices. No matter what routine is being carried out, the caregiver's values about it are shaped by her childhood, her child care training, and other cultural influences. It is essential to recognize these values and understand that they are being transmitted to the children.

We need to look at our backgrounds, our philosophy, and why we are in the work we are in. We need to be honest, with ourselves and with families. It is not helpful to pretend to be interested in the parent's point of view-saying "Tell me about why Mei Ling cries and you pick her up immediately," as we are thinking, "This parent is spoiling this child." Rather, we must uncover the values that underlie our own beliefs, become aware of multiple perspectives on childrearing, be open to the parent's point of view when there are differences, and be willing to change some of our practices.

To provide cultural and familial continuity, child care centers should employ staff who are of the same culture and who speak the same language as the children served. Culturally representative staff should be included in decision-making positions. Using small groups is key. It allows caregivers to have a manageable number of cultures to relate to. They can get to know the families and be more responsive to their concerns.

Meeting the Needs of the Individual in a Group

In an intimate setting, flexible scheduling is possible. Babies sleep when they want to sleep and where they want to sleep. They eat when they are hungry, and are fed with food that meets their individual needs. They play when they want to play, with plenty of opportunities to get down on the floor, to explore a variety of toys and materials, and to play alone, with other children, and with adults. Since babies' rhythms are individual, this means that a caregiver can expect to be keeping an eye on one sleeping infant, watching another who is absorbed in her own play, and actively engaging a third. An intimate setting recognizes toddlers' individual needs to explore, assert autonomy, and periodically reconnect with the secure base their caregiver provides. Nutritious snacks are available (often the focus of spontaneous socializing), potty training occurs as the individual child is ready, and ways are found for the toddler to re-visit her old crib if that is important.

In an intimate setting, a child with special needs can be accommodated. At the Creative Preschool, for example, a toddler with a serious medical condition requires frequent cat-naps. A beanbag chair in the room allows him to stay with his play group during the day, yet go to the chair for a 10- or 15-minute nap as he needs one. When he wakes up, he is near his caregiver and friends, and can immediately rejoin the day's activities.

In Conclusion

The care of young children in groups is a profession. It includes both science and art. As a society, we need to make it possible for people to study the science and practice the art of caregiving. We need to release caregivers to provide the kinds of responsive care they know how to do or can be trained how to do, and to develop deep relationships with parents, children, and other caregivers.

High quality care for infants and toddlers must be in small groups, with appropriate ratios. There must be time for relationships to be established. There must be time for caregivers to learn and practice the different ways they will need to relate to children in the first three years of life-being very available in the earliest months, then helping children to "find their wings" as development proceeds.

Group care can be a place where infants and toddlers, with and without disabilities, can feel their potency. Group care can be a place where all children, caregivers, and parents form deep, meaningful, and satisfying relationships that support both the family and the full development of the children. We need to make it happen.

Acknowledgements

This article, edited for length, was based on a plenary presentation at ZERO TO THREE's 1993 National Training Institute in Washington, D.C. Most of the content of this article comes from print and video materials of the Program for Infant/Toddler Care. Some statements are direct quotes from these materials. An additional resource, Caring for Infants and Toddlers in Groups: Developmentally Appropriate Practice (2003), may be ordered from the Zero to Three Bookstore.

Authors:

J. Ronald Lally, Ed.D., Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, Sausalito California

Yolanda Ledon Torres, Child Care Consultant, Pasadena, California

Pamela C. Phelps, Ph.D., Creative Preschool, Tallahassee, Florida

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How to Care for Infants and Toddlers in Groups

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Out-of-home child care for infants and toddlers, if done well, can enrich children's early experience. It can also be a therapeutic component of services to at-risk children, providing a safe and consistent base for protection, prevention, and treatment.