disadvantage and support the early identification of SEN - and
practitioner/parent teamwork will help, says Dr Kay Mathieson.
The Government's funded places initiative for two-year-olds is intended as an early intervention to tackle disadvantage and as a means to support the early identification of special educational needs. Few would argue against enabling all children to have a positive start to their lives as an aspiration, but provision must be of high quality if it is to have a positive impact on children's learning and development, and identify the early signs of developmental delay.
The positive impact of high-quality provision was demonstrated in the Effective Pre-school and Primary Education (EPPE) project (Slyva et al, 2010) - and more recently Mathers et al (2014) have identified four dimensions of quality provision for the under-threes:
- stable relationships and interactions with sensitive and responsive adults;
- play-based activities, with children leading their own learning;
- support for developing children's communication and language; and
- physical activity and movement.
In addition, research from the British cohort studies suggests that to deliver high-quality provision, practitioners need to consider the risk factors affecting children's life chances. These include wider socio-economic, demographic influences but also family issues, such as parental depression, substance misuse, basic skills, disability, being a teenage parent and domestic violence.
However, the research warns against practitioners taking a generalised view of these problems and the families affected by them. Instead, to promote more effective support of children and families, it encourages practitioners to strive to understand how the risk factors combine and are experienced by specific families (Sabates et al, 2012).
THE CHILD'S PERSPECTIVE
By two years old, children have already begun learning about 'how the world works' in their home environment. Parents are doing their very best to provide for their children with the personal, economic and community resources available to them. Learning with parents about the similarities and differences in the child's responses at home and in the setting provides a context to understand the child's view.
From the two-year-old's perspective, attending a setting can be a strange and confusing process. Just on a basic level, the relationships are unpredictable, the numbers of children and adults are vast compared to home, as are the resources available. This is before thinking about any kind of 'rules and routines'.
To understand each child's perspective, practitioners will need to take into account several issues, for example:
- What previous experience has the child had of this activity/situation? This may be about using a bike, sharing a toy or interacting with an unfamiliar adult.
- What sense is the child making of this particular activity/situation? How do you know? What are the other possible interpretations?
- What emotional signals is the child showing? This requires insight from the practitioners following discussion with parents to recognise subtle differences in levels of anxiety and involvement in activities.
- What impact are the relationships with specific adults and peers having on this activity/situation? This needs to include recognising that children will respond differently depending on who is with them.
- What evidence do we have so far about current strengths and abilities, particularly related to the prime areas of learning? Taking a holistic view of a child's progress helps to identify, for example, periods of accelerated learning or consolidation of skills.
REALISTIC AND INFORMED EXPECTATIONS
The recent TACTYC report (Georgeson et al, 2014) highlights just how difficult it is to define what constitutes 'high-quality provision' for our two-year-olds. The research also raises important issues about the expectations placed on practitioners and the support needed to build confidence, knowledge and skill levels for individual practitioners.
To recognise and meet appropriately the needs of our two-year-olds, practitioners certainly need to have in-depth knowledge of typical child development. However, for their expectations of individual children to be realistic, practitioners must be able to reflect on how this theoretical knowledge underpins their professional perception of an individual child's progress.
To accomplish this, the child development knowledge needs to be talked about, challenged, different sources explored, considered and, most importantly, reflected on with colleagues in relation to specific two-year-olds.
Initial training is intended to be a starting point in a professional career that continues to be characterised by further learning and enquiry. With a secure understanding of child development, practitioners are more able to recognise individual differences in typical development. For example, the child who continues to 'bottom shuffle' at times when they are motivated more by an object than locomotion is not demonstrating an inability to crawl or walk. Rather they are demonstrating an ability to use an achieved skill in a situation where their learning has a different focus.
To make such judgements accurately, knowledge of the child must be built up systematically, sharing 'hypotheses' about our understanding with colleagues and parents. As a professional, this enables us to stand back and consider the possibilities, using factual evidence from observations to confirm or challenge the original hypothesis.
If there were additional indicators, such as general 'floppy muscles' and a consistent inability to pull themselves up when an adult is holding their hands, the hypotheses would increasingly focus on the possibility that the child's muscular development was not progressing as expected. This, with parents' permission, would trigger seeking more specialist advice.
COLLABORATIVE WORKING
The practice in a high-quality setting will be to nurture and support each practitioner as a learner through collaborative working and effective use of supervision. This ability to work through, with colleagues and parents, current shared thinking about a child's development requires confidence in knowledge of typical development, not as a checklist but as a starting point for understanding each child's developmental journey.
Combining the use of hypotheses with our observations provides an opportunity to recognise 'surprises, delights and concerns' about a child's individual rates of progress. Judging progress is not about looking at learning in isolation but reflecting on relative progress across areas of learning. This is especially important for the prime areas of learning where the interconnectedness of PSED, CL and PD need to be particularly well understood in relation to our two-year-olds.
As recognised by Georgeson and colleagues (2014), a high-quality practitioner's interactions are characterised by the ability to use a depth of child development understanding to provide 'skilled, sensitive anticipation and response' while 'maintaining a balance between support and independence'. This is also crucial in recognising and responding to the early identification of SEN.
Making judgements about each child's progress should not be a solitary activity. The picture is built up between colleagues over time and in a range of situations. Parental insights from the variety of contexts in which they see their children are central to the construction of an effective hypothesis. This evidence-based approach brings together specific observations, recognised patterns of progress and a holistic view of the child's approaches to learning. Such information builds a detailed picture that will inform discussions if seeking advice or support beyond the setting.
Practitioners in high-quality settings are supported to establish and continually improve their positive relationships with parents for the benefit of the child. The TACTYC report talks about the concept of 'relational pedagogy' that is defined as 'stepping outside of oneself to see things from the child's perspective then back to the adult's perspective to offer appropriate responses' (Georgeson 2014).
I would suggest that a similar approach is essential to working effectively with parents, particularly those of two-year-olds. Parenting a two-year-old is often an emotional rollercoaster, some days full of joy and confidence, others despair, frustration and feelings of incompetence. Practitioners have the opportunity in their regular and frequent conversations with parents to put the child's responses in a developmental context, highlighting progress and the likely next challenges.
This combination of parent and practitioner knowledge of an individual child provides a sound foundation for both early identification of SEN and appropriate intervention.
MORE INFORMATION
- Early Childhood Matters: evidence from the effective pre-school and primary education project by K Sylva et al (2010), Routledge
- 'Multiple risk factors in young children's development', working paper, by R Sabates and S Dex (2012), Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education University of London
- Two-Year-Olds in England: an exploratory study by J Georgeson et al (2014), http://tactyc.org.uk/research
- Sound Foundations: a review of the research evidence on quality of early childhood education and care for children under three. Implications for policy and practice by S Mathers et al (2014), University of Oxford and The Sutton Trust.
