Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Hello all!

When discussing any topic in Early Childhood Education, one should understand the theoretical and philosophical background of the field.

 No, you do not need to be Socrates to get it.

 How many of you have heard of Developmentally Appropriate Practice? How many of you know what it actually means?

 Developmentally Appropriate Practice was developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children many years ago. The authors, Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp, define the philosophy as activities being age appropriate, individually appropriate, and socially/culturally appropriate.

 Age appropriate considers the child's chronological age versus his/her developmental age. For example, if a child is chronologically two-years-old; however, he/she is completing tasks for an eighteen-month old, then the adult would have the child attempt to complete the tasks appropriate for an eighteen-month-old child.

Individually appropriate allows the adult to adapt or modify the activities to meet the child's task level while socially/culturally appropriate takes into account the child's social skills as well as their family's cultural background.

The Council for Exceptional Children followed suit by writing a Position Statement on Best Practice. The concepts are very similar although children with special needs or developmental delays were taken into account.

For more information about either of these philosophies, then please feel free to visit the National Association for the Education of Young Children's website at http://www.naeyc.org and the Council for Exceptional Children's website at http://www.cec.sped.org.