Using the Infant/Toddler Foundations as a Framework

for Understanding and Facilitating Children’s

Learning and Development

Peter Mangione and Cathy Tsao

PITC Graduate Conference

October 26, 2007

Guiding Principles in the Creation of the Infant/Toddler Foundations

The family (including the family’s culture and language) plays a central role in early learning and development.

Infancy is a unique stage of life that is important in its own right.

Development in infancy can be described by three age periods—birth to eight months, eight months to 18 months, and 18 months to 36 months.

Guiding Principles (cont.) Infants and toddlers are competent, yet

vulnerable, at every stage of development.

Nurturing relationships provide the foundation for emotional security and for optimal learning and development.

Emotions drive early learning. Infants and toddlers are active, curious learners who are internally driven to interact with social and physical environments.

Guiding Principles (cont.)

Infants and toddlers learn in a holistic way rather than one domain at a time.

Early development can be characterized by both quantitative and qualitative change.

Early development reflects an interplay of differentiation and integration.

Domains Covered by the Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Foundations

Social-Emotional Development

Cognitive Development

Language Development

Perceptual and Motor Development

DomainDomain

FoundationFoundation

Age-level descriptionAge-level description

ExamplesExamples

Behaviors leading up to the foundation

Behaviors leading up to the foundation

Purposes of the Infant/Toddler Foundations

To provide research-based descriptions of the way most infants and toddlers typically make developmental progress

To create a common language for facilitating communication among families, infant care professionals, community members, and policymakers about how to support the optimal development and well-being of infants and toddlers 

To augment infant care teachers’ understanding of early development

To inform the curriculum planning process

Using the Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Foundations to Inform the

Curriculum Planning Process

The Foundations Offer Us A Lens For Observing and Understanding Children’s

Development and Learning

The foundations describe developmental accomplishments of children with appropriate support at around 8, 18, and 36 months of age.

The “behaviors leading up to the foundations” give us insights into how children move toward those accomplishments and what comes next for them developmentally.

Small-Group Activity: Focusing on Specific Foundations & Age Periods

Tables or groups of 4 to 8 people will be given an age period on which to focus (4 to 8 months, 8 to 18 months, or 18 to 36 months).

Several DVD presentations of specific foundations will be shown. After watching each DVD clip:

Read the behaviors leading up to that foundation in the print document.

Discuss with your colleagues how you would adapt your interactions and the environment to support children’s development described by the foundation.

Curriculum Planning Process

Observe

Document

Reflect and Plan

Implement

Repeat Cycle: Observe, Document, Reflect & Plan, and Implement

Small Group Activity: Reflecting on Documentation (a DVD Clip)

Watch DVD Clip Tables or groups of 4 to 8 people will discuss which

foundations they observed in the clip.

After determining which foundations you observed, your group will consider the following question:

How would you support the child’s “mastery” of the current competencies your group identified using the foundations while also helping the child continue to move toward levels of increasing challenge and complexity?