Assessment of Children’s Behaviour

Assessment of Children’s Behaviour

The exercise of observing and assessing children formalises the link

between theory and practice.

A great deal of observing a child today is focussed on what’s wrong

with the child, and how we can intervene to help that particular

child.

Early childhood specialist Carolyn Seefeldt agrees, ‘ observing is

probably the oldest, most frequently used and most rewarding method of

assessing children, their growth, development and learning.’ (A

practical guide to child observation, Christine Hobart)

It is important to know how to observe in order to collect the

necessary data in the most useful, accurate and efficient way.

The value of carefully planned observation and assessment cannot be

over emphasised.

Observing children helps the observer to get a true picture of the

particular child’s development, any potential triggers and any

incidents that may occur.

Observation also reduces the possibility of children being unfairly

labelled, which can create its own set of problems.

In order for any observation to have any value, it is important that

the observer is as objective as possible and that several observations

take place. This is to ensure that the observation is fair and

accurate. (B Tec Early Years Yvonne Nolan)

One particular observation technique commonly used to observe children

is sociograms.

These are used either to indicate one particular child’s social

relationships within a group, or to look at friendship patterns of all

the children within a group.

Sometimes this highlights the unpopularity of a particular child and

may motivate the placement setting to...

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...thoughts.

He felt that this was an ongoing process, which helped children to

adapt and grow.

Although Piaget is one of the most well known theorists, his research

methods have been criticised.

Piaget used clinical interviews as his research method; this method

was open to bias, as the type of data Piaget collected is qualitative,

but very informative.

It was said that Piaget under estimated children’s level of thinking.

He suggested that the cognitive development of children was linked to

maturation, and that children could not be ‘fast tracked’ through

theses stages.

However some research suggests that children can learn different tasks

by giving them the experiences and opportunities, e.g. Bruner felt

that 5 and 6 year olds could be taught to conserve, although training

isn’t fully effective.