Assessment of Early Childhood Development

Assessment is a process that allows trained professionals the opportunity to evaluate the level of development for children in the early childhood period. It is critical that children be at least screened off and on during the early childhood period to ensure they are growing and achieving the developmental milestones appropriate for their age. The areas of development that are being developed during the early childhood period include: language, literacy, fine and gross motor, math and science, social emotional and approaches to learning.

Assessment of Early Childhood Development: Language

Language development in the early childhood period consists of three different types of development: receptive language, expressive language and pragmatic language. Receptive language is how well a child understands what is said to them. This does not have to do with the ability to hear, but rather the ability to understand language. Expressive language develops after receptive language begins and is related to the ability to communicate in spoken words. Children in the early childhood period go from being able to use single words to communicate to being able to used 5 to 6 word complex sentences by the time the reach school. Pragmatic language is body language, facial expressions, tone and pitch of voice. All of these behaviors add precision to what a child is saying expressively.

Assessment of Early Childhood Development: Literacy

Literacy, as defined by the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, relates to being able to understand and use printed information in daily activities, at home, at work and in the community. Given this information, literacy development in early childhood means being able to hold a book right-side up, point to picture and then to words, turn pages one at a time and tell stories from the pictures.

Assessment of Early Childhood Development: Fine and Gross Motor

Fine and gross motor skills are a huge part of the early childhood period. Fine motor is related to the ability to use the hand, fingers and wrists effectively in activities of daily living such as: holding a pencil, using scissors, buttoning and zipping clothing and using eating utensils. Gross motor skills acquired during the early childhood period are: rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing up, walking and running.

Assessment of Early Childhood Development: Math and Science Skills

Math skills acquired during the early childhood period are associated with developing concepts such a big and little, large and small, more and less, rote counting and one to one correlation. Science skills that are developing during the early childhood period are related to learning how to think about and understand the world. Children learn to explore their world and to understand it from their exploration. They start to collect things and organize them into categories. They observe their world and make hypothesis about why things are the way they are.

Assessment of Early Childhood Development: Approaches to Learning

Development of approaches to learning is a specific part of the early childhood period. Young children are learning through the early childhood period how to pay attention, how to plan what they want to do, how to organize themselves. They also are learning how to take on challenges and to be persistent when they run into roadblocks.

Assessment of Early Childhood Development: Social Emotional

Social emotional development, during the early childhood period, consists of a myriad of skills and competencies. Eye contact, listening, reciprocating in communication, smiling, crying, playing, sharing, and interacting with peers are all parts of social emotional development in the early childhood period. Children go through socialization stages including: isolated play, parallel play, associative play, associative cooperative play and cooperative play.

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