Essay: Meeting The Needs Of All Children In Early Education And Care Settings.

Physical needs	·         Child can be encouraged to run, swing and climb and other physical activities so that his/her physical development can occur at a normal pace. ·         Early education and care workers should observe every child and assess their needs..
Emotional needs	·         There are different emotional needs of a child. He or she may feel sensitive; have a strong sense of justice and perfection. ·         Workers of these settings need to observe every child to understand their emotional quotient and address their emotions positively.
Acceptance of individual differences	Different children differ in their growth due to gender, age, nutrition, race and many more factors.
Opportunities to learn	This is the most important factor in education and growth (physical and mental) of every children.
Respect and self-esteem	Self-esteem comes from the love, recognition and support of family and teachers. Hence, the teachers should recognize every achievement of the child to increase his confidence.

Sequence of development	It is a pattern of development for every children. Every child has its own pattern for development. For example, a toddler has to be able to walk before running. However, another child will follow the general process like sitting, rolling over then walking.
Individual differences	Individual differences are factors that differs one child from another. The differences can be – race, ethnicity, genetic factors, nutritional factors, growth environment and gender.
Readiness	Readiness is a multi-dimensional concept, in which the cognitive ability of the children decides their success and wellbeing.
Age-appropriate development	Age-appropriate development is the development of communication norms largely agreed upon within a society or amongst sociological and psychological establishments to be suitable to a child's growth of social skills
Stage of development	This is related to the development of children, which is divided into several stages and this division is depending on the qualitative differences between children.

Developmental milestones are physical skills or behavioral skills that is seen among the children during their growth and development. These milestones are different for every age range and the timeframe to acquire these depends on the ability of the child itself.  These milestones are- crawling, rolling, sitting, walking and talking. There is a general time range in which a child reaches these milestones (Australian Government Department of Social Services, 2017).

As per the definition of the developmental milestones, one particular milestone has a period, within which the milestone will be reached. However, every child has its own ability to reach that milestone. Sometimes it takes minimal time for the baby to reach the milestone and sometimes it takes longer to be able to acquire the skill. Hence, if a baby is not trying to sit or roll in the age of 8 months, it should be treated as normal. The child may be focusing on other aspect of development than sit up and roll. Hence, parents should not concern about the issue (Westendorp et al., 2014).

Stammering in children is a serious problem as it creates a lot of confusion in their brain and affects their mental development. However, in early ages, when the child learn to speak, it is quite common. The child started using different words and hence, stammering seems quite natural for early development of children. However, if the habit persists until 1 to 2 year of age, parents should seek the advice of doctors. This is because; childhood stammering generally disappears after 1 to 3 year of age. Hence, if the stammering is persisting, the parents should seek advice of doctors.

Involving parents in the developmental journey of every children is effective as children spends most of their time developing in the presence of their parents. Hence, early educational centers should involve the parents every time a child achieves his developmental goal or acquire any skills. The parents should also be involved if the children is not able to achieve these goals as parents can help the child to be motivated. Hence, a continuous review process should be provided to all the parents to engage them in the developmental process of children.

The National Quality standards covers different areas of collaborative partnerships with families and communities (ACECQA, 2017). These are-

• It ensures that a positive, respectful and supportive relationship between families and educational and care workers can be developed and maintained.
• Families get support in parenting of their children
• These services collaborates with other organizations to increase children’s learning ability and wellbeing.

As per the situation provided in the question and the learning outcome of Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), it can be stated that the child acquired a strong sense of identity.

Emotional needs

According to this outcome, the two things that the educator can do to respond to the baby and promote learning are –

• The educator can start one to one interaction with the baby to become familiar with its natural responses
• The educator can use their interaction to understand his development speed..

Age group	Developmental area	Games/activities
3–5 years	Physical	Running, spinning in circle, leaping and climbing can be activities that can help in development of gross motor in children of this age group
	Cognitive	Verbal games such as word game, Tic Tack Toe, I spy and hide and seek, and different board games such as connect four dots, memory game, Uno, dominoes can be used to increase the cognitive ability of children.
Age group	Developmental area	Games/activities
2–3 years	Language	Group games to encourage conversations, games to use the verbal skills, I spy game that encourages the lingual participation. singing songs or rhymes to encourage speech
	Physical	Dance to music, running, jumping, tumbling
1–2 years	Cognitive	Activities and games like pull and peel the tape, color separation can be color identification can be used to increase the cognitive ability
	Social	The child should be taught with the value of empathy and personal space. The child be aware of the social norms and behaviors. He should be able to understand the differences in the tone of voice and difference in behavior.
8–12 months	Cognitive	Puzzles, stacking up toys, hiding, color puzzles can help to increase the cognitive capability of the kid.
	Language	Activities to make the kid babble and interact, singing songs along with the kid, and showing colorful alphabets and pictures
4–8 months	Physical	Dancing. crawling, sitting and massage can be appropriate activities for a child to be developed completely in this age group
	Cognitive	The kid should be introduced to sound by providing him few noisy toys. Mirrors should be hanged to their level and parents should read out stories for them.
Birth to 4 months	Physical	Moving legs and hands in circular motion, massage are the main physical activities
	Emotional	Crying due to hunger of fear, smiling by watching familiar faces are prime emotional activities

Age group	Physical development in this age group
0–4 months	Lift their head and chest while lying on stomach, control movement of their arm and legs, able to drag dangling objects, randomly opens and shuts their hands and grasps objects too.
4–8 months	plays with toes and feet, rolls from back to stomach, eyes smoothly follow object or person and moves in unison, crawling movements using both hands and feet, turns head to sound of voices
8–12 months	Pull themselves to standing position with support, able to crawl maturely, can pick and throw small objects, becomes anxious when parents are not around, and cry in the presence of strangers
1–3 years	Walks, runs, climbs, dances to music in a position, seeks comfort when upset, plays with other toddlers as well, can feed themselves
3–5 years	Can dress and undress themselves, can hop and run easily, understands when someone is hurt and comforts them, plays with other toddlers as well, answer simple questions and speaks in sentences
6–12 years	Can think logically, can read sentences and can form longer paragraphs, can draw and adds three-dimensional effects to it, engages in activities with peers and understands rules and complex games.

Gross motor development- motor development is known as the changes in the ability of a kid to control his muscle movements. This change occurs from the spontaneous movement of hands and kicks of infants to controlled movement of locomotion, reaching and complex sport skills. Examples: running jumping and crawling are examples of gross motor development in infancy.

Age group	Toys	Equipment	Games
Babies and Infants	Color toys, simple puzzles,	Massage, moving hands in uncontrolled motion	Color matching, grab and hold objects in hand
Toddlers	Running behind a ball, jumping and hopping practices	Ball, hula hoops, shoes to jump	Hopping, jumping and running behind a ball
Pre-schoolers	Puzzles, color match, running, hopping and grabbing objects I hand	Puzzles, ball, hoop and pulling pushing objects	tic tack toe, racing, running, jumping hopping
Primary school age	Running, jumping, hopping	Hula hoops, hoping ball, gorilla gym running track	Hide and seek, racing, jumping

Fine motor development is known as the actions performed with the small muscles of hands wrists and fingers. Eye-hand coordination is promoted when a child colors a picture or writes her name with a pencil. Repeating this activity will help a child refine her fine motor movements and become more precise. Three examples are: Ripped scrap papers, magnets and glittertoons (Payen & Gregory, 2017).

Age group	Toys	Equipment	Games
Babies and Infants	Kids mobile	It will contain song and visual equipment that will help babies to understand visuals and sounds	Identification of sounds from the name of the animal
Toddlers	I spy telescopes	This toy will have equipment’s that will generate communal harmony and peace	Spy games with other toddlers
Pre-schoolers	Dough, bead and balls	This prime equipment will contain colorful clays and crafts to affect the finer motor development of the child	Clays can be used as material for colorful building blocks. beads and balls will also be used to develop the fine motor of the preschoolers
Primary school age	Analytical questions, simple questions and puzzle and riddles can be played by primary students	Books and copies will the prime equipment	Matching colors, draw difficult painting and answer to analytical question can be used as games

Infants- there are very few daily activities that infants can do by their own. However, few physical activities of their routine they should perform every day such as trying to walk and sit up or drink water from a cup. This activity routine will help them to be independent and reduce their cry habits.

Toddler- the daily routines of toddlers should include physical activities like running, crawling and hopping for their gross motor development, drawing art and clay to develop their fine motors. Now the toddler should introduced to hygiene and cleanliness so that he can protect himself from infections.

Pre-schoolers- their daily routine should include physical, mental and social activities. They should be able to understand about simple rules and regulations. Their activities should be of group of toddlers so that they can grow in social aspect. Their physical activities should include climbing, tumbling and running. They should be able to maintain personal hygiene and maintain a clean environment around them.

	Impact	Potential long term impacts
Poor diet	obesity, mental illness, and failure to thrive academically	Osteoporosis, cardiovascular problems, type two diabetes mellitus
Lack of play	Less developed bones and muscles, socially isolated and less confident	Affected social life, cardio vascular disease and obesity
Limited stimulation of brain (include reference to development of brain synapses)	The child is not able to sense one of his sensory organs	Affects the cognitive development in children by affecting one of the five senses of human body.
Inconsistent or absent emotional support and comfort	Less social, insensitive to feelings, cannot express their pain and dilemma	Adult depression and suicidal tendency with high health risks.
Stress	Their brain become wired to react to stressful or threatening conditions, making them slow in coping life demands and slows their growth rate as well.	Prolonged stress can elevate the level of cortisol that can eventually damage the developing brain and physical growth and effects the immune system as well.
Lack of materials and resources	Affects the child socially as it creates an envy to acquire everything their friend might have	Less social, less sensitive and more angry

Biological factor- Nutrition

Environmental factor- economic status of the family.

According to neurological test reports, prenatal, perinatal and postnatal phase of childhood is very important for the overall development of brain. The child gets to learn about the world in these phases and the experience from these phases decides his future. His overall physical emotional and social development will depend on this phase. Hence, early development of a child is very important (Luby et al., 2013).

Social development of a child is defines by his or her ability to understand his or her own feelings, understand of others feelings and needs and the ability to interact positively. This is the prime foundation of the child’s social life.

Acceptance of individual differences

Age group	Social development in this age group
0 – 1 year	Recognize family people, began to communicate
1 – 3 years	Uses imagination, seek out others too
3 – 6 years	Enjoys with peers and communicate with strangers too
6 – 8 years	Does not hesitate to communicate with strangers

Scaffolding is a process in which the children are provided with motivations and moves to help them achieve comprehensive success and independent learning process. It is an essential process in modern parenting and learning process and helps children to achieve success (Hill et al., 2017).

Example: a fragment of sentence, that need to be completed by the children and asking he reason for its incompleteness.

• By supporting, the child’s social and emotional skills and letting him communicate clearly with everyone.
• Providing him with activities that connects the family. Understand his point of view for supporting them.
• Creating a welcoming environment for all the children and families of neighborhood so that the child can connect with all of them.

• One-to-one interaction – this will help to the service provider to understand the depth of the imagination of the child. It will be easier to assess the success and the child will feel free to share his thoughts without any hesitation.
• Small group interaction- this will help to assess the ability of the children to communicate in a group freely, it will increase the child’s social communication skills.
• Large group interaction- this will also help to increase the capacity of the child to communicate with peers and interact socially. He will be able to learn the idea of cooperation and will become helpful to others.

Emotional development is a complex procedure that starts from the infancy and through different stages, the child acquires these emotional skills. The first few emotions a child acquires are joy, anger, sadness and fear. Furthermore, due to development more emotions like surprise, shyness, envy, shame and guilt can be acquired (Schore, 2015).

Age group	Emotional development that occurs in this age group
0–1 year	Joy, anger, cry seeks comfort
1–3 years	Joy, anger, seeks comfort and fear
3–6 years	Shyness, anger, joy, guilt, surprise, fear
6–12 years	Fear, joy, anger, shyness, surprise, guilt envy, humble

1. Acknowledging the child’s emotions and feelings
2. Letting him play with other kids and observe his behavior with them
3. Loving them and showing affection towards them. Encouraging their social opinions.

1. Publishing the work of children so that they can feel motivated and do better in future.
2. Keep moving in the entire care center so that nobody in the class can feel neglected, as the attention of teacher is very important for the students.
3. Seating arrangement of the students should be rotating, so that every child gets the opportunity to sit near the teacher and the teacher can observe each student closely.

Receptive language- it is defined by the ability to understand the communicative information involving the meaning of words, sentences and phrases others say while communication (Leonard, 2014).

Expressive language- it is the ability to reply with a properly framed words or sentences when someone communicated. The ability to put words in the answer of some one’s receptive language is known as expressive language (Leonard, 2014).  

Age group	Language development that occurs in this age group
Birth – 4 months	Noise to express demands, responsive sounds, babbling, cries
4 – 8 months	Babbling, speaks with vocals gestures
8 – 12 months	Recognize names of few objects, babbling
1 - 2 years	Recognize requests, babbling, recognize names of more objects, understand gestures
2 – 3 years	Names actions, develops vocabulary follow instructions
3 – 5 years	Uses 5 6 words in sentences, tells their names and what they are doing
5 – 8 years	Understands directions, speaks in phrases, understands grammar

1. By responding to the gestures, looks and sounds of the baby.
2. By talking with and listening to the child.
3. Helping children building their language skills and verbal skills.
4. helping children to create feeling vocabulary and recognize those feelings
5. Reading books with the child and singing songs with them.
6. Narrating daily routine so that the child can understand what they do all the day.

1. talking and singing with infants to develop listening and speaking skills
2. For school aged children, playing word games, reading stories, rhymes.
3. Encourage them to draw, letting them the opportunity to use words and sentences they learn, in their verbal communication.

4. Counting problems, idea of size, distance and speed, count cars, toys or tables.
5. comparing sizes of stones, trees, count the number of flowers in the garden
6. Use different shapes to identify.

7. establish expressive freedom amongst the children
8. allow them room, if they do some mistake
9. make them participate in creative learning programs
10. Use emotional connection to make them think creatively.

Cognitive development is a study in neuroscience and psychology concentrating on a child's expansion in terms of information processing, perceptual ability, language knowledge, and other aspects of brain growth and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's opinion (Bjorklund  & Causey, 2017). Different cognitive skills that are been developed are memory, attention, thinking and so on.

1. The toys chosen for children encourages different ways to play them. Some examples are homemade clays, blocks, cardboard boxes, cars and tracks and so on. This can enhance the creativity inside each children, as the toys that has only 1 way to play hinders the thinking of the child and force him to think in one direction only.
2. Each question of children are given value and a proper answer has been provided. This helps to maintain the eagerness of knowledge in every child.

A child in the care setting was sitting on a table trying to arrange the entire puzzle and was unable to stack them in the puzzle tray. Hence, I went on to help the child and used my spontaneous skills to communicate with him and understand his problem. I helped him to stack the puzzle cubes. Therefore, his problem was solved (Merrell & Gimpel, 2014).

The EYLF defines intentional teaching as educators being thoughtful, determined and considerate in their decisions and actions. The intentional teaching I applied was:

organized and took time to involve in personal discussions with children and their families to make them feel comfortable and appreciated

invite children and families to share images, substances and resources that reflect their cultural and social backgrounds

These two process of interacting with the family and the child will help to gain confidence of the child. This is important as the child stays alone in the care settings and can hesitate or fear to disclose all his needs or thoughts to the tutor. Hence, being comfortable with the children, the tutor can understand the needs of the child. This is why the child in the first scenario communicated to tell me about his problem and eventually I was able to make him understand the value of communication.

1. Please sit on your chair.
2. please keep quiet
3. I will sit at little distance from the kid
4. Molly! We will do that once you are grown up.

Opportunities to learn

Consult children using various kinds of communication 

Interact and collaborate with all the children on regular basis like discussions on small or large groups 

Encourage children to consider new ideas and interests that haven't done before in service

Allow enough time for children to express their ideas in various contexts and respect their view, comments.

1. How did that happen?
2. Can you tell me about the picture?
3. What are you upset at?
4. “Hi! Dolly”! Perry, are you enjoying with the doll?

	Resource: Use of non-fiction book It will help to build the vocabulary of the child, enhance the imagination skills.
	Resource: Computer /keyboard It will help the kid to understand the usage of computers and its analytical skills
	Resource: Map and place names It will make the child understand about the world, his vocabulary about the nations will improve
	Resource: Dramatic play – restaurant and menus It will help the kid to learn about the name of the foods, he can use his mathematical skills by adding up the amount in it

1. Telling kids about the book and its main idea.
2. Understand the genre of the book and pointing out the interesting facts about it.
3. Asking the kid about their minimal knowledge about the topic covered in book or let them gather knowledge about it.
4. Explaining the importance of the topic for their future, and engage them in the reading can enhance their listening skills.

• I will ask the parent to learn basic English
• it will be preferable for the children to talk in English at home while eating, playing with parents
• Let the children read bed time stories in English
• singing songs together in English

1. it helps to remember things that were in focus of learning and helped to remember what is left to learn
2. it help us to connect to our relationships and peers
3. it helps to remember our food, comfort and other preferences
4. it help us to relate to our habits and personality
5. memory helps us to remember our identity and personality

1. Concept of measurement-this helps to understand the measurement skills. This can be difference of height, weight, distance, speed.
2. concept of Patterns-  Patterns help kids acquire to make calculations, to understand what comes next, to make rational connections, and to use cognitive skills
3. Problem solving concepts- it enhances the ability of the child to think over a problem, to identify there is more than one track to the answer.

• Loving the children and give them praises.
• Help them to set realistic goals
• Self-love and self-talk need to be enhanced
• Encourage sports or other physical activities.

• Helping him to communicate with society
• Let him express his views when people are hurt in front of him
• Letting him help his friends in need

• Catching the kid when he is correct and ask him to amend the mistake when he is wrong
• praise them on their positive behavior, a small punishment when do negative things
• helping them in their positive works, criticizing them in their fault

• Teaching with photographs
• switch off the audio while watching a movie
• make them understand the gestures of family members
• playing dumb Charades with them

• letting them watch cartoons where friendship is the main focus
• let them watch movies on friendship
• read stories about friendship

• helping them understand the problems
• make them understand the way they can solve the problem
• make them understand the problem in an easy way

• Asking them to wish good morning or hello while meeting anyone,
• being seated while eating can be taught
• Addressing the words, as ‘thank you’ and ‘you are welcome’ as magic words that need to be said every time someone helps you can teach them these minimum manners.

• Asking the kids, the problems repeatedly will help them to understand the processes to solve it. This process will help to solve the problems in the absence of the parents or when things become difficult.

1.

• toys for his baby sister
• decoration of the room
• making bed for his sister

2.

• Hard work hats, shovels, plastic crates, tape measures, some tractors and dump trucks.
• Posters of road works and pictures of tunnels, bridges, road workers and construction worksites.
• Books about roads and construction.

Nicola is an intelligent child. She is able to remember the Italian words taught by her nonnie. She has developed bilingual interaction skills and can remember both the vocabularies. She is comfortable in talking to her tutor and has manners and appreciation skills

• She is able to remember the things
• She told to the tutor previously.
• She has developed manners.
• She has developed her bilingual skills.
• She is able to share her thoughts clearly.

• I can ask her about her knowledge about her Italian food skills
• I can ask if she remembers what her nonnie describes her about Italy
• I can ask about the practices they perform as Italian

The ethical code of conduct of any country does not ask the citizen to forget their heritage or roots. Nicola’s nannie is Italian and she has every right to follow the practices and speak in Italian language freely.

I will talk to Oliver about the action he has performed very politely. I will make him understand that, Jeremy could have become injured by the push and if he wants his block, he can ask him to return that. Hence, I will try to pacify the situation and make him learn the sharing of toys. 

Anshul always had a plan prior to start the construction that defines his learner skills. He is involved in his work and focuses on balancing the larger cylinder on smaller one. This defines his involvement in his task. He allows other to involve in the construction process and appreciates their ideas. That defines him as confident kid not shy or jealous to others.

The way Anshul communicates with his peers while construction and after that with the tutor, explains his communication skills.

The educator ask Anshul to draw his imaginations on a paper so that everyone can become influenced to it. She appreciates the effort of Anshul and claps for the tower they made.

What made you think like that Anshul?

These photos of Anshul, indulged in construction and communication with his peers can be used for further kids to become inspired and driven to think like him. More kids can think the way Anshul thinks and their cognitive and creativity skills will be encouraged.

The children become curious to learn about sea and its creatures. They develop skills to enquire, experiment research and investigation through this exercise

The educator in this scenario explains the NQS element. She arranged a work place for children where they can apply their knowledge and share them to other kids. They are free to deliver their thoughts and ideas about sea and its animals. It will make their communication skills positive and let them talk to strangers freely.

Moment after the educator heard about the discussion of children, she arranged a place to apply their thoughts and knowledge. This scenario demonstrates her responsiveness and enthusiasm towards children.

Children will be able to apply their thoughts

One child can inspire other to thought differently or can become inspired by others

They can learn about the topic by scaffold learning

They can learn about sea animals, their foods, and the environment in which they live. These things will increase their vocabulary about sea and sea animals.

• The educator can ask every children about their thoughts personally to understand the uniqueness in thoughts
• The educator can show them videos of sea and sea animals so that their visual memory can be enhanced 

References

ACECQA. (2017). Children’s health and safety. Acecqa.gov.au. Retrieved  from https://www.acecqa.gov.au/Childrens-health-and-safety

Australian Government Department of Social Services. (2017). Developmental Milestones and the EYLF and NQS | Department of Social Services, Australian Government. Dss.gov.au. Retrieved from https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/publications-articles/developmental-milestones-and-the-eylf-and-nqs

Bjorklund, D. F., & Causey, K. B. (2017). Children's thinking: Cognitive development and individual differences. SAGE Publications.

Hill, M. F., Ell, F., Grudnoff, L., Haigh, M., Cochran-Smith, M., Chang, W. C., & Ludlow, L. (2017). Assessment for equity: learning how to use evidence to scaffold learning and improve teaching. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 24(2), 185-204.

Leonard, L. B. (2014). Children with specific language impairment. MIT press.

Luby, J., Belden, A., Botteron, K., Marrus, N., Harms, M. P., Babb, C., ... & Barch, D. (2013). The effects of poverty on childhood brain development: the mediating effect of caregiving and stressful life events. JAMA pediatrics, 167(12), 1135-1142.

Merrell, K. W., & Gimpel, G. (2014). Social skills of children and adolescents: Conceptualization, assessment, treatment. Psychology Press.

Payne, V. G., & Isaacs, L. D. (2017). Human motor development: A lifespan approach. Routledge.

Schore, A. N. (2015). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Routledge.

Westendorp, M., Hartman, E., Houwen, S., Huijgen, B. C., Smith, J., & Visscher, C. (2014). A longitudinal study on gross motor development in children with learning disorders. Research in developmental disabilities, 35(2), 357-363.