Take aways

There was a wealth of information to take away from this week. Being a new mom, my mind is very fresh with all the information. But I think the reminder that children will accomplish milestones at various rates and times is something to always keep fresh in my mind. Development isn ‘t black and white. I feel that this weeks information spoke to me on a more intuitive level. Meaning that even though a developmentally appropriate practice is “grounded in research on child development and learning knowledge base regarding education effectiveness”, that there are other aspects such as the child’s contribution and the parent/provider intuition that also play a crucial role in developing a successful developmental practice in early childhood.

I don’t have any children so this week was a reminder of what changes to expect at what age. I’m glad I have nephews that right now are 4 and 20 months, because it makes it easier to remember the characteristics of each stage since I’m seeing the changes in them.
When each stage was presented I could think of the different kind of songs that could be used, but I’m excited to keep thinking about it and see how to make the groups more successful.

It’s always good to get a refresher on early childhood development, especially from someone who was able to put the information into applicable terms and provided lots of examples. I really appreciated the pointers about how we can put parents’ minds at rest about their child’s development. I’m guessing you’ve had several of these conversations a number of time! As a non-parent, I’m sometimes worried that parents will discount what I say; thanks for reminding me that I can be an early childhood professional with the knowledge and background to back that up without being a parent.

Like Dany, I started thinking about songs and instruments that would support the development of the child at each age.

There was a lot of good information this week and a good refresher for me on child development. One of the most valuable things I took from it were the red flags, but also along with that were caveats about development being different for each child, so just because a child may show a red flag, that doesn’t mean he/she may have a diagnosable developmental delay. I also appreciated the comments about what concerns parents often bring up and how we can explain things and put their minds at ease.

Not sure where the best place is to bring this up, but did anyone else have a difficult time being able to read the text in the 2nd video? Video 1 was clear and I was able to take notes and fill in the blanks, but video 2’s quality was a lot lower so everything was difficult to read. Not everything was spoken so I had to try to guess at some of the fill in the blanks. Is there any way to improve the quality of the video so the text is readable?

I had the same experience Kate. It was almost impossible to read the test in both the small video and when it was expanded to full screen. I think I got most of the blanks filled, so if you had any you missed, I can try and help.

And by ‘test’, I definitely mean text.

Katie and Kate I will bring this to Meredith and the technical team’s attention. I will also go back and check the video’s to see if this is global problem. Thank you for bringing this up and if you do have any future issues like this feel free to email me (erika.svolos@gmail.com). I try to get to things within 24 hours.

For me, the biggest take away this week was looking at all the developmental milestones in a different light—in their own categories (Cognitive/Emotional-Social/Sensory/Physical, etc.). I know this may sound elementary to many, but sometimes a parent gets so overwhelmed with the big things like rolling over, etc. that they fail to see all the other things their child is doing so well. For example, rhythmic sucking. One of my twins had considerable breathing problems, but he was a rhythmic sucker. If only I had remembered this list when I was in the emotional phases of the NICU, I would have remembered that he was developmentally going to be fine. Another quick example, my 9 year old never rolled over as a baby. She sat, she crawled, she walked. No rolling over. As a first time mom, I thought something was wrong with her. Seeing the lists of stages and developments remind me that she, like so many others, can easily be considered “normally developed” when you see all the other areas they are exceling in.

When I think of the children I have worked with as a therapist and even with my own children, I can see patterns that each child is proficient in one area but not in others and it carries throughout their development. As a therapist, I can see how this would be especially helpful in planning sessions, music, and musical activities to help boost those developmental delays and challenge and grown the developmental milestones that have already been achieved.

(I’m working backwards, forwards and in between!)
My take away this week was the refresher on early childhood development for sure. It also brought an awareness of stages of development for my child, my friend’s children, and my clients. These have all accelerated on a personal level since I had a child of my own. (He is now 2 1/2!) The “red flags” were key. While there are of course variations in time frames for development for our kids and our client’s kids, some personal examples really stood out for me on the “red flag” status. Thank you, Beth, for pointing those out specifically from your experience as a MT with this population! I am grateful for both of your experience and for sharing it with us through this training.

I thought the red flags were particularly useful. I think my biggest take away was the review of child development. I took a course with Beth years ago, but at the time I did not have any experience with child development. Several years later I have had much more experience, and can visualize these milestones in the clients I have had. It makes it much easier to understand child development 🙂

My take away from this week was a good review of early childhood development. Having my own kids and also working with infants/babies in the music setting, it is amazing how just weeks can bring about changes in the wee ones and this was covered so well. Your attention to the parent and parent concerns was great, I felt these nerves as a new parent and I see the concern in the parents I work with. I agree with everybody that the red flags you mentioned are good to be on the lookout for and to monitor when working in the music setting.