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Core Competencies for Early Childhood Professionals:
Child Development

Early childhood professionals have an understanding of how children develop physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally, as well as how children acquire language and other forms of communication. In addition, professionals need to know about various factors that influence child development, and how individual children’s development can vary. Early childhood professionals use their understanding of child development combined with their knowledge of each child as an individual in the context of the family to support children’s overall development.

Level One Competencies

A. How Children Develop

  1. Describes principles of growth and development
  2. Identifies and defines developmental domains (physical, cognitive, social-emotional, communication)
  3. Identifies basic developmental milestones of children prenatal through middle childhood
  4. Recognizes how children are different from adults in learning, behavior, and needs
  5. Describes how children’s play contributes to overall development
  6. Recognizes the importance of observing and documenting children’s development, begins to keep anecdotal records, and communicates with others about the observations

B. Influences on Child Development

  1. Describes the importance of attachment to children’s development
  2. Describes how the fulfillment of basic needs relate to child growth and development (physical, cognitive, social-emotional, communication)
  3. Describes the importance of seeing the child in the context of his/her family and environment
  4. Describes the importance of children’s interactions and relationships with peers and adults to their development

C. Individual Variance

  1. Recognizes that children have different temperaments, needs, rates of development, and learning styles
  2. Recognizes that stress resulting from trauma, abuse, neglect, poverty, and other factors impacts children’s development and behavior in individual ways
  3. Recognizes the characteristics and signs of atypical development in children

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Level Two Competencies

A. How Children Develop

  1. Identifies major theories and theorists of child development
  2. Begins to identify a personal philosophy
  3. Recognizes the crucial role of sensory exploration and play in children’s development
  4. Summarizes the basic findings from brain development research
  5. Describes the sequence of communication development
  6. Describes the sequence of physical development, including gross and fine motor skills
  7. Describes cognitive development in children
  8. Conducts, documents, and interprets observations
  9. Recognizes when to seek the help of others in understanding and addressing children’s atypical development
  10. Identifies resources for acquiring information about atypical development

B. Influences on Child Development

  1. Recognizes physical or behavior changes that may indicate the presence of stress in children’s lives
  2. Understands and supports children’s need to use play to express stressful events in their lives
  3. Identifies the impact of children’s health status on their behavior and their ability to interact and learn
  4. Describes factors influencing resiliency in children
  5. Identifies aspects of children’s home and family culture that influence their development

C. Individual Variance

  1. Identifies temperament and individual differences in children and their impact on children’s development and behavior
  2. Describes characteristics of a resilient child
  3. Describes the potential effects of stress on children’s development and behavior

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Level Three Competencies

A. How Children Develop

  1. Analyzes major theories of child development
  2. Observes and uses knowledge of typical developmental progression and expectations to identify children’s abilities, needs, and behaviors in the following domains: communication cognition, physical development, and social and emotional development
  3. Observes and analyzes children’s play referring to the stages described by developmental theorists
  4. Employs strategies that enhance brain development

B. Influences on Child Development

  1. Uses preventative strategies that influence and optimize healthy child development
  2. Uses an understanding of societal influences on child development (for example, poverty, trauma, homelessness, violence, racism) to address the needs of individual children
  3. Analyzes the role of media in children’s development and behavior
  4. Recognizes the impact of biological, prenatal, and environmental influences on a child’s development

C. Individual Variance

  1. Integrates information on child development with children’s individual approaches to learning to tailor the curriculum to each child
  2. Employs a variety of strategies to help children cope with stress and other developmental challenges
  3. Employs practices that build children’s resiliency
  4. Identifies strengths, needs and interests of each child and develops strategies to support each child’s growth and development
  5. Identifies and discusses issues in child development arising from differences in gender, race, and class

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© Vermont Northern Lights Career Development Center
Last modified September 26, 2005