KMadamba
e-Portfolio
Applied Developmental Psychology & Infant Development Program (IDP)
While children need a great deal of care and help, they are hardly helpless. They are largely self- motivated and self-directed in their development. They are naturally social, and naturally intelligent. They seek out tasks to develop their own skills. The adults’ role is to provide the trustworthy, secure physical and emotional base from which the children conduct their reaching out into the world"
- Megan E. Daly's Infant Development Program
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As a student in the Applied Developmental Psychology minor, I supplemented weekly lectures on child development with an internship at Megan E. Daly Infants Development Program (IDP), a university-affiliated childcare center. This lecture-to-site curriculum allowed me to apply scientific research directly to the care I provided to the infants and toddlers at site and implement evidence-based curriculum activities that facilitate their learning.
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Image from IDP's "Philosophy" web-page.
I witnessed the rapid changes that occurs within the first year each day at IDP, celebrating with the teachers and children upon each transition from bottle to solids, crawl to walk, and babble to object-labelling. I gained an appreciation for how much children can learn through play and the curiosity they each possess to understand the world around them. While we analyzed scientific journals that describe general trends within the first years of life, IDP reminded to honor the uniqueness of each child. Over time, I learned each child's routines and interests-- who likes being sung to sleep, who enjoys water play, and who always reached for the book "Hello, Farm." Most importantly, I learned that relationships lay the foundation for each child's developmental trajectories. Just as we celebrated each individual, I brought a piece of myself to the relationship I formed with each child. It was this bond that showed me our role in a child's life goes beyond basic needs. We are part of the child's support network-- their village-- to ensure that they feel safe, loved, supported, and capable of taking on this world.
Case Study: Leroy's Emerging Sense of Self-Efficacy
I collected fieldnotes of my focal child, Leroy, over an 11-week observational period and documented the day-to-day, week-to-week development. Writing a case study also taught me how to reconcile group averages in scientific research with individual differences of the child right in front of me. While I was knee deep in research articles, I learned to keep Leroy at the heart of my work, to ensure that my writing was true to the work that he was doing each day at IDP.
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I noticed that Leroy showed a lot of repeated behaviors and movements. Did Leroy have specific goals, and how did he learn that he is capable of accomplishing that goal?. I was interested in a phenomenon known as effectance and how child learn that they are capable of making things happen in their world. That moving his hand can produce a sound from the shaker that he grew to love. That his cry can remind us to bring him his bottle or that his laugh makes me want to continue lifting him up and down in the air.
Even if children still have a wobble in their walk, or can't speak full sentences they have a behavioral repertoire that changes the way we respond and make objects move or produce interesting sounds. As I researched effectance, I learned that it's important that children realize just how much they are capable of achieving now and in the future. We must be patient through all their trials, attentive to their call for support, and encouraging with every step closer to that goal.
An educated human being teaches a child what a child can become."
- Kurt Vonnegut