MY SUPPORTS

My Parents

My Sisters and I

My Best Friend

My Fiance

These pictures of people represent my immediate support system. They are first my parents, my two sisters, my best friend, and my fiancé. I chose to display them because they are the first line of support in every aspect of my life, social, emotional, educational, spiritual and professional.  When I can’t get support from one, another in this group will step up (sometimes without knowing it).  Without them I wouldn’t have become who I am now and would be a miserable person. In each relationship, we teach and learn from each other.

There are other support systems in my life: fellow church members, co-workers, classmates. I would also include Walden University as a support system and all that entails of being a student. I say that because of the laptop I had to purchase in order to complete assignments.

Having had terrible vision all of my life, I have often wondered how losing my sight would affect me. My primary support system would remain the same, family and friends. However, the technology I would use would need to be upgraded. I would have to learn different means of communications (phones and Internet) and would not be able to drive causing me to find different means of transportation as well. Without the physical supports, I would not be able to complete educational courses, go to work, or receive email. Some people that are blind have dogs to assist them. I’m not sure if I would want this verses someone with me conducting business. A dog cannot assist me with the duties of an administrator or teacher at the day care.

My Connection To Play

‘Those forces that prevent children in poverty and the working class from benefiting fully from play deserve full, even urgent, attention…’ (Ginsberg, 2007).

‘…many of our children do not have access to the natural play experiences we experienced as children. They don't walk in the park collecting leaves, throw stones in the water to see the ever-expanding ripples, play racing-of-the-sticks under the bridge, build muddy castles on the banks of a cold stream, or create a frontier fort with their buddies. They don't scramble up gnarled trees, skip across meadows full of flowers, pick nuts from low branches, use a fallen tree as a natural balance beam, or sit on an old tractor imagining that they are leading a convoy of explorers across the Sahara Desert.’ (Wardle)

Ginsberg, K. (2007). The importance of play in promoting healthy development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Pediatrics, 119(1), 182–191. Retrieved from http://www.aap.org/pressroom/playfinal.pdf.

Wardle, F. (n.d.). Play as curriculum. Retrieved August 1, 2010, from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=127

I was about 10 years old here in these pictures (I'm in the middle on the first picture). We imagined that our neighbors sandy area in their back yard was the beach. Every now and then their mother would come through with a big wave (water hose). The youngest child pictured is about 5 years old.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             I chose this picture because of my Dad. Although he was gone most of the summer running revivals all over the country, he made sure that we had balls and bats. That’s why our yard was always full of other children. We made up home plate and trees or tree stumps were bases. Because of the natural environment we made up rules for fouls and home runs. Because of the made-up rules, we became precision hitters when we began playing organized ball.

It was 7 of us, my parents, me, and 4 siblings. My father had a good paying job that would have placed us in middle class when he felt the call to fulltime ministry. We were a low income family, but we were more fortunate than many of our childhood friends. There were a couple of homes a block away from us that did not have running water inside. In the early 70’s one of our baby sitters had a pump in the back yard for water. However, in these surroundings we had a rich play environment. We made toys from household equipment. We used our long driveway as a skating rink in the winter. We used the rear of our yard as the ‘woods’, where my siblings often contracted the poison ivy itch.  We were free to play in the street and get a neighborhood game of kickball going or double dutch with someone’s laundry rope. I cannot forget our made-up games of racquetball and volley ball off the garage door. The game depended on if we had a real ball or not.  

Play as I knew it as I child, I don’t see when traveling through neighborhoods; whether in low income areas, middle income, or affluent ones. Parents do not encourage children to get outside to play for many reasons. In some areas, the danger in the neighborhood overshadows the play environment even on the child’s home property. More and more parents are satisfied with enrolling children in organized sports through charitable organizations to give the children some kind of physical release after school and during the summer. However, these are places where adults make all the rules; no imagination or collaboration between playmates is made in order to play the games. I also remember that we instituted hilarious ways to choose members for teammates to play.

Quote from the Association for Childhood International

Every child should have the opportunity to grow up in a setting that values children, that provides conditions for a safe and secure environment, and that respects diversity. Because children are both the present and the future of every nation, they have needs, rights, and intrinsic worth that must be recognized and supported. Children must receive appropriate nurture and education within and outside their families from birth onward if they are to develop optimally. Attention to the health, nutrition, education, and psychosocial development of children during their early years is essential for the future well-being of nations and the global community.

Association for Childhood Education International. (2002). Retrieved February 26, 2011 from http://www.udel.edu/bateman/acei/wguides.htm.

I'd like the thank all my classmates for making this class more enjoyable. Reading your posts have enhanced my learning. Best wishes with your continued studies. Continue to positively change early childhood education in your area.

Should Children Participate in Assessment Tests for School?

Child assessments – When should they be done?  How should they be done? Who should be responsible that an assessment is done?  These are questions that both parents and developmentalists are asking in this 21^st century. Berger (2009) stated that clinicians cannot agree when and how children are tested for cognitive skills. As an Early Childhood professional I must say that children need assessments in cognitive, social and biosocial areas of their age groupings, preferably before grade school. Special needs children need to have thoughtful and professional caregivers to assist learning and development.

We have had a child in our center since he was 2 and he is now turning 3 years old.  The parent and some caregivers in the center were convinced that the child’s screaming ‘fits’ were behavioral.  Last month we figured out what his problem was. He was not able to articulate to his classmates what he wanted so he resorted to screaming, crying, and throwing things.  Now we are able to get him help with his speech.  Had we continued believing his problem was strictly behavioral his success in grade school would have been considering lower than his peers.

Egypt Assessment For Grade-Schoolers

I chose to find out a little more about Egypt’s educational assessments since Egypt has been in our news for the last two weeks.  They have begun a speech assessment for Arab speaking children to ascertain their speech levels.  According to Abou-Elsaad et-al (2009), children tested considerably higher on articulation tests when they were taught word association with pictures. 

Abou-Elsaad T, Baz H, El-Banna M: Developing an Articulation Test for Arabic-Speaking School-Age Children.  Folia Phoniatr Logop 2009;61:275-282 (DOI: 10.1159/000235650)

Berger, K. S. (2009). The Developing Person: Through Childhood (5th ed.). New York, N.Y. Worth Publishing.

POVERTY Stresser

Blog Assignment

Poverty in the United States and in the world as a whole affects young children in similar ways negatively. I remember hearing stories from my father of how poor they were growing up in Galena, Kansas. Although the depression was supposed to be over when he was born in 1939, their town and surrounding towns were built because of mining. According to my father, the mining industry in that area had almost disappeared after World War I thus leaving the area impoverished after businesses left the area following the miners. My father was the 5^th of 6 living children and understood hand me down farmer jeans and so forth. He remembers lying in bed in his room and seeing the stars some nights. His mom raised chickens to sell the eggs for bills to be paid. His early memories of walking were those of being sent to the back ‘coup’ to get eggs for someone at the front door. What impresses on my mind is how he stayed relatively healthy all these years and did not have fresh fruits weekly and only protein from beans many times. There was no baby formula, so he ate a smashed version of what the family ate. There was no cow, so milk was a special treat in the house when someone traded for eggs. Love and respect was in the home so those hard times of dinner with only biscuits and gravy seemed like a gourmet meal to him. He became a survivor like many other people in that era.  However, due to poverty his teeth and bone health suffered.  As a child he suffered unusually caused broken bones. Tooth aches were the norm for him and there was no real dentist to help. In his late twenties he had to get a full set of implant teeth (He would be so angry for this post.  Don’t tell him.).

I wanted to see how adults’ health in developed countries was affected when they grew up in poverty. I found in my opinion a well compiled collection of statistics on the conditions of young children and adults in developing nations and developed nations. The title, “An Appraisal of the Adequacy of Dietary Mineral Intakes in Developing Countries for Bone Growth and Development in Children” (1993) alone tells the direction of the premise of the study.

 This study, that includes results of previous studies, focus on mineral components in young children and adults in the same communities searching to see if mal-nutrition in poverty stricken areas (whether in well-developed or developing countries) are the causes of slower bone growth in young children. Although the results of the collection of studies ended inconclusive on what lack of minerals caused bone deficiencies in growing children, there were still a disproportionate number of children with bone disease such as rickets in children in impoverished areas. Prentice and Bates (1993) initiations of study were in Cambridge, UK and Keneba, The Gambia; which gives evidence of diversified cultures. One of the studies very interesting was that young children that were breast fed in any culture about the same proportions of minerals in their bodies whether or not they lived in the impoverished areas (p. 54).

Ann Prentice and Christopher J. Bates (1993). An Appraisal of the Adequacy of Dietary Mineral      

     Intakes in Developing Countries for Bone Growth and Development in Children. Nutrition  

     Research Reviews, 6, pp 51-69 doi:10.1079/NRR19930006.

Mental Health of Children in Great Britain

In the early childhood profession caregivers in the child care arena must be aware of the many mental health challenges that may occur in families. I chose to look into mental health problems in children in Great Britain because the culture is that of a super power.

Many categories of life many contribute to an increase in health problems. The same occurs for mental health. If there are mental disorders in a child or parent, the overall development of the child is affected.  

The study I chose to review used clinical type questionnaires of over 10,000 families in Great Britain to determine the effect of mental disorders in children between the ages of 5 and 15.  (Metzler et al, 2003). All of the statistics were based on the diagnostic criteria for research using the International Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders (Metzler et al, 2003). Although this week we were studying infants, in my opinion, we could use these statistics for the younger that fit in those categories listed in the study.

Summing up the study, many social categories seemed more likely to affect a child’s mental health than others. The following are some of the categories Metzler et al. (2003) presented where mental and behavioral disorders were higher than with children not in these categories:

·        Children from low income families

·        Children from uneducated families

·        Children whose parents did have higher learning (college or trade school)

·        Children from one parent homes

·        Children with reconstructed families (step parents and siblings)

·        Children in public housing verses children of home owners

From this study we find out that limited resources in families affects children regardless of the culture. Parents are least likely to seek assistance for their children professionally if they are in a low income status (Metzler et al.). Early childhood professionals must be cognizant of the challenges of all children especially of those whose parents cannot or are not capable of helping their children. We can see signs of mental disorders and inform parents where reasonable or free resources are available to them.

Meltzer, H., Gatward, R., Goodman, R., & Ford, T. (2003). Mental health of children and        

     adolescents in Great Britain. International Review Of Psychiatry (Abingdon, England), 15(1-

     2), 185-187. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Infertility

The second half of this week's assignment was to refer to other countries birthing practices as it pertains to our examples.

I was curios about infertility and how it was dealt with in other countries and found that Australia was leading the 'pack', so to speak, with scientific research and application as early as 1938 when the first noted infertility clinic was opened.

I was in the Army during those years of my personal losses. Much of the known knowledge of infertility was not made available to me and I did not search for assistance outside of the government. My view is that couples planning to conceive and have children should take advantage of the many resources available world wide. Unfortunately those with limited funds may not have access to the variety of programs available. Women are choosing to have children later in life. Prenatal care is essential for women of all ages.

Buggey, T. (2007, Summer). Storyboard for Ivan's morning routine. Diagram. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 9(3), 151. Retrieved December 14, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database