Young T oddlers: 12-15 Months

1. Parent Information Day! Young Toddlers: 12-15 Months Kierra Corcoran, Heather Putt, Maria Ricci, Kyrstyn Proie • http://www.creativekidsdaycarecenter.com/ckc/images/young_toddler_image.jpg

2. Physical Development: Basic Information • During the first year the child triples their weight and doubles their height. • On average they grow 2 ½ inches and gains 5-7 pounds a year. • The average toddler weighs between 22-30 pounds. • The child should consume between 1000-1300 calories • They are beginning to transition from liquid foods to solid foods. During this process they are also beginning to use utensils. • They are also developing fine and gross motor skills. • Sleep is also very important to a healthy development. Around this age they spend 40% of their childhood sleeping.

3. Physical: Environmental Factors • Children at this age love climbing. • They will put objects in their mouth out of curiosity. • Young toddlers love to touch object and use their hands. • It is important to keep away harmful objects, such as space heaters and light sockets. • Car crashes are the #1 leading cause of death for children over the age of 1

4. Physical: Activity • An activity that promotes the development of gross motor skills is a maze. • A maze can provide benefits for all three domains. • It helps develop muscle growth, but it also can benefit the memory. • This activity can also help dealing with emotions and learning about the child’s temperament. • This would also be a good activity to teach children how to control their emotions. • Depending on how well the children react to the activity the level of difficulty can change.

5. Physical http://www.toddler-activities-at-home.com/image-files/1-year-toddler.jpg

6. Cognitive Development: Basic Information • Babies are born with billions of neurons and through synaptic development they develop connections within their brains. • According to Piaget young toddlers are in the sensorimotor stage, which has six substages. • Middle-aged young toddlers fall into the fifth stage. The fifth stage is called tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and encompasses the ages of 12 to 18 months. • At this age, young toddlers begin information processing, which occurs in three steps. The steps are encoding, storage, and retrieval. • Memory can be broken up into two types, explicit and implicit. • The main way of studying young toddlers intelligence is through the use of developmental scales and infant intelligence tests.

7. Cognitive: Environmental Factors • If a child is malnourished their cognitive development will suffer. • Children who are malnourished receive supplements to help them develop properly. • Poverty also effects cognitive development. • Parents and caregivers need to be sure that harmful items are out of reach, there are no chocking hazards, and everything that the baby could mouth is clean. • When looking at an optimal environment it should include reading materials and music.

8. Cognitive: Activity • The shape-can activity • The materials needed are empty coffee cans, or containers with plastics lids, scissors, and foam board or construction paper. • Cut shapes into the plastic lids, the foam board or construction paper should be cut to match the shapes cut into the plastic lids. • The final product will have the containers with shapes cut into the lids and pieces that match that shape for the children to place in the container. • This activity can help children use their budding logic skills to determine which shapes will fit in which containers and it can be used to help with their development of cause and effect.

9. Cognitive http://setonmontessori.org/school/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/toddler-puzzle.jpg http://baby.more4kids.info/uploads/Image/Mar/messy-play.jpg

10. Social/Emotional Development: Basic Information • Due to their limited verbal skills, they also use physical assertion to get their needs met because they have limited verbal skills at this age. • Young toddlers begin to exhibit assertiveness by resisting caregiver’s requests. • Young toddlers in this age group begin to experience social referencing, and separation anxiety begins to peak. • Young toddlers have certain ways to express themselves, which can determine how they interact with people. • Their temperament, or personality, can affect if they have trust or mistrust with their caregiver. There are different temperaments, easy child, difficult child, and slow to warm child.

11. Social/Emotional Development: Environmental Factors • They could be provided with a beloved object of their own to foster their social and emotional development. • It is important to show support to gain that trust and to have a positive attachment with the 12 to 15 month old child.

12. Social/Emotional Development: Activity • Activities that will enhance the social and emotional development for a toddler who is 12 to 15 months are different “Do What I Do” games. • This will allow the child to first be observant of what the caregiver is doing, and allow them to recognize a certain action. • It will be important to encourage the child to do new things and show a lot of enthusiasm when they successfully complete an action. • his is a social and emotional game because the 12 to 15 month old will have to imitate what someone else is doing and interact with them.

13. Social/Emotional http://newgulphkids.squarespace.com/storage/canstockphoto0698727.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1296144449834 http://www.thespoiledchild.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/toddler-crying-280x280.jpg http://raisingchildren.net.au/verve/_resources/vpc_clinging.jpg

14. Issues: Nutrition • Provide healthy snacks that are high in iron, vitamin D, and protein. • See how they eat at school and inform the parents about healthy eating at home. • A child should be eating 1000-1300 calories a day of healthy food and should be drinking about two to three cups of milk a day. • Encourage the children to self-feed and begin to have them use utensils. • Avoid whole grapes, popcorn, raw carrots, and hot dogs, because of choking hazards. • Experiment with different foods.

15. Issues: Safety • At this age children are at a great risk of chocking on small objects that get stuck in their throat. • Keep small objects out of reach of the child, child proof the outlets and cabinets, and make sure toys are not broken. • Sanitize and disinfect all objects that come in contact with the toddlers. • Enforce everyone to wash their hands and to not come in contact with the toddlers when they are ill.

16. Issues: Separation • Separation anxiety is being to be prevalent. • Will cling to their caregiver, cry after the caregiver leaves, and ignore other people. • Allow transition time. • Distract the child with a fun game, song, activity. • Comfort them and give reassurance.

17. Issues: Sleep • Children around 12-15 months still need a lot of sleep and spend 40-60% of their day sleeping. • Monitor the child when she is in the classroom and then inform the caregivers. • Inform caregivers about their child’s need for a regular nap routine.

18. Issues: Maltreatment • Be aware of unusual marks, injuries, bruises, and burns on children. • If a teacher suspects abuse, she/he is required by law to report it to the child protective services. • Physical abuse is not the only form of maltreatment; there is also emotional and sexual abuse.

19. References • Bellini-Zaher Christina. (2012). Therapy center for children. Retrieved from http://www.therapycenterforchildren.com/child-development.html • Cherry, Kendra. (2012). What is attachment? Attachment Definition. Retrieved November 27, 2012, from http://psychology.about.com/od/aindex/g/attachment.htm • KidsHealth. (2012). KidsHealth - the Web's most visited site about children's health. Retrieved from http://www.kidshealth.org • Santrock, John W. (2010). Children. Dallas, TX: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.