DEVELOPMENTALLY

APPROPRIATE PRACTICE
IN THE INFANT AND TODDLER YEARS---AGES 0-3

Bingzheng Ji
• What is DAP?
• What Teachers Do? Index
• Infants and toddlers
• NAEYC defines “developmentally appropriate practice” as
methods that promote each child’s optimal development and
learning through a strengths-based, play-based approach to joyful,
engaged learning.
• Teaching to children’s:
• Ages
• Experiences

What is DAP?
• Capabilities
• Interests
• Based in knowledge of child development and learning
• Concept of “developmentally appropriate” focuses on:
• Age-related and individual human distinction
• Materials utilized
• Learning experiences
• Expectations for children
• Begins with a foundation of understanding child
development and learning styles
• Teachers need to
• Meet children where they are What Teachers
• Individually
• As a group
Do?
• Help each child attain challenging & achievable goals
• Young infants (birth to 9 months) seek security
• Mobile infants (8 to 18 months) eagerly engage in
exploration Infant & Toddlers
• Toddlers (16-36 months) continue to form their identity
• Babies are individuals with individual caregiving needs.
• Babies enter the world ready for relationships.
• They are masters at attracting and holding the attention of familiar,
responsive people by the time they are 3 months old.
• Babies delight in hearing language.
• Babies learn through movement.
• Babies learn best when they are alert and calm.
Young Infants
• In a group setting, young infants like to watch other babies and
older children, and they light yup when a friend smiles and coos at
them.
• Babies use their senses and emerging physical skills to learn about
the people and objects around them.
Example
• KEY: the infant care teacher’s responsive interactions help infants believe
the world is safe, interesting, and orderly---a place they understood and
can bring pleasure to them
• Morning Greeting
• Mobile infants thrive on exploration and interaction.
• Mobile infants are fascinated by the daily activities of the other
children and adults around them.
• Mobile infants find their peers very interesting.
• With mobile infants’ new physical, cognitive, social, and emotional
abilities come new discoveries and fears.
• Mobile infants express strong emotional ties to the adults they love,
and they are acutely aware of their vulnerability when their loved ones Mobile infants
are gone.
• As they play, theses young explorers can be totally absorbed.
• As they paly and use their new physical skills, mobile infants learn the
rudimentary rules of cause and effect.
• Using language helps mobile infants stay connected with their infant
care teachers oover small distance.
Example
• KEY: Mobile infant's new language, physical, and connive abilities may
have a profound effect on relationships between them and their primary
infant car teachers.
• Play a small truck
• Young toddlers are busy exploring the world from their new, upright point.
• Once toddlers master walking, their motor skills grow by leaps and bounds.
• Toddlers are especially intrigued with the daily activities they see adults
engage in and watch intently as grown-ups go about daily tasks of cooking ,
cleaning ,building, and fixing.
• Toddlers are fascinated by words.
• Toddlers love to hear stories about themselves and the people and things they
love.
Toddlers
• Through their experimentation with objects, language , and social
integrations, toddlers enter a new phase of cognitive growth.
• Toddlers’ social awareness is far more complex than that of infants.
• Even very young toddlers are capable of empathy and touching kindness in
their own ways.
Example
• Key: The toddler care teacher likely to be teacher, comforter, referee,
diaper changer, play mate, and storyteller– all in the course of a day.
• Quality time
THANK YOU FOR
WATCHING!