1. Overlapping domains: All developmental domains i.e., physical, social/emotional, communication, cognitive and adaptive, are important and closely interrelated, continually influencing one another.
Implication for learning: Promoting how young children think, feel, move, and interact involves considering and fostering their development and learning across all developmental domains.
2. Sequenced knowledge and abilities: Many aspects of children’s learning and development follow well documented sequences, with later abilities, skills, and knowledge building on previous ones.
Implication for learning: Knowledge of how young children typically develop and learn guides team members in designing learning experiences and interacting with children in a supportive environment.
3. Development varies: Each child’s development varies across different areas of his/her individual functioning, as well as between individual children.
Implication for early learning: Decisions about selecting curriculum, teaching strategies and materials, specialized intervention and interactions with children should be as individualized as possible.
4. Continuous interaction between biological maturation and experience: Development is the result of the interplay between a growing, changing child, and how he or she experiences the social and physical worlds.
Implication for early learning: Systematic, individualized intervention can minimize the impact of a delay or disability on a young child’s learning and development.
5. Early experiences: Optimal periods exist for certain types of development and learning.
Implication for early learning: Intervention and support are more successful the earlier a problem is addressed. Some aspects of development occur most efficiently at certain points in the life span e.g., the first three years appear to be an optimal period for oral language development. Kuhl, 1994
6. Increasing complexity: Children’s development builds toward greater complexity, self-regulation, and symbolic or representational capacities.
Implication for early learning: Preschool children communicate their thoughts and meaning through many paths, including oral language, gestures and body movement, visual arts (e.g., drawing, painting, sculpting), construction, dramatic play, and writing.
7. Relationship dependent: Children need secure consistent relationships with responsive adults and opportunities to initiate and nurture positive interactions with peers.
Implication for early learning: Positive adult-child and child-child relationships promote children’s learning and achievement, as well as their social competence and emotional development.
8. Context-bound. Development and learning occur within, and are influenced by, multiple social and cultural contexts.
Implication for early learning: Team members need to understand the influence of sociocultural contexts and family circumstances on a child’s learning as well as on their own perspectives and interactions.
9. Active engagement: Children learn in a variety of ways as they actively seek to understand the world around them.
Implication for early learning: Parents and early childhood providers must select the best strategy(s) for each learning situation, considering the learning goal, specific context, and needs of individual children in the moment, including those who may need more support than others.
10. Play is learning: Play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation and promotes language, cognition, and social competence.
Implication for early learning: Play is linked to foundational capacities such as memory, self-regulation, oral language abilities, social skills, and success in school. Hirsch-Pasek et al, 2009
11. Just right challenge: Learning progresses when children are prompted and challenged to achieve at a level just beyond their current mastery, and have many opportunities to practice emerging and newly acquired skills.
Implication for early learning: Team members use their knowledge of early development to select strategies and provide a rich learning environment that motivates children to practice and mas-ter new and progressively more advanced challenges.
12. Personal attributes: Children are shaped by the impact of their experiences on their motivation and approaches to learning (i.e., persistence, initiative, and flexibility). These dispositions and behaviors, in turn, affect their learning and development.
Implication for early learning: How children learn is as important as what they learn. Children’s approach to learning involves their feelings about learning (e.g., interest, pleasure, and motivation to learn) and their behavior when learning (e.g., attention, persistence, flexibility, and self-regulation).
