Understanding child development is essential for child health and well-being. It is the first of three types of knowledge that child care providers need in their work with children. Labeling is a powerful way to encourage conceptual development, as simple labels can help children unify disparate things into coherent categories. However, labels can also reify categories or concepts in ways that may not be predicted.
For example, saying “boys and girls line up for recess” implies that gender is an important dimension, compared to saying “children”. Box 4-4 provides examples of linguistic distinctions affecting children's construction of conceptual systems. In-depth analysis of the interrelationship between variations, as well as an analysis of the constants and changes in learning environments and child development, is possible with knowledge of child development. This allows us to gain important information on the relevant aspects of early education and its impact on development, career educational and future perspectives. Providing adequate health and developmental screening and follow-up care and services is also important to support development and early learning. A positive relationship with educators may be especially important for children who are at risk for academic difficulties, as such a relationship can provide support for self-confidence and participation in the classroom (Pianta et al.).
Messages from parents and educators are also important in determining how children attribute their own success and failure, which, in turn, predicts their future effort and expectations of success. The German Early Childhood Education and Care System (ECEC) covers institutional care and education before and together with primary and secondary school. The global child health sector recognizes the importance of early childhood development and has shifted its focus to emphasize that it is no longer enough for a child to simply survive, but that children have the right to thrive. Determining how relevant educational competencies emerge from the interaction of domain-specific precursors and the child's general basic abilities (such as basic reasoning skills, speed of information processing, or executive functions, including cognitive flexibility, inhibition, working memory) on the one hand, and environmental conditions in the family and in childcare, on the other, is an important issue to be addressed in educational studies. It was found that children of early school age who had ADI as infants had lower test scores than those who did not have ADI. These studies suggest that the impact of early care and education programs on physical and emotional health is long-term. In short, considerable early learning occurs in the course of ordinary interactions of a young child with a receptive adult. Developmental psychology has long convincingly documented that neither the development of children nor the development of infants is a homogeneous endeavor.
Studying human development makes it easier to spot possible signs of problems.
