I agree with being careful on labeling children ~ there are so many 'syndromes' out there these days that it is easy to do but the fact remains that all children develop differently for sure ... the challenge with children's development is that much of it is based not only on life experience in your daycare but OUTSIDE of it as well so just because they get the same exposure 9 hours a day 5 days a week there is all the time at home after hours and on weekends and so forth affecting 'development' of that child as well as their little personality traits and learning styles which are all different as well ... so if a child has parents who are very verbal at home and talk to their child frequently and give commands and simple tasks right from infancy it goes to reason the child is going to be 'quicker' to develop this than a child whose parents do not 'talk' to the child all the time at home and instead of giving commands just pick the child up and 'remove' him from situations and so forth ... throw in that the second child whose parents are not 'supporting' learning these things at home is also a hands on learner with a stubborn personality trait ~ it might take him months longer to master at your program because of that 'inconsistency' between home and the program confusing him and making him frustrated with the expectations?


The Nippising Screening Tools are a useful tool for monitoring and identifying 'red flags' in a child's development ... if a child is lacking in 3 or more of the things on these basic checklists than there might be cause for concern regarding hearing, sight, speech and other developmental spectrum issues .....if you are not already doing these they are a great conversation starter with parents about 'I was doing the screening tool with all the children today and noticed that Billy has 4 no's for his age range ~ just wondering if he is mastering these things at home?' and see what the parent has to say than ... perhaps they are not offering the CHANCE to do it than you can discuss how these expectations are precursers for other developmental mastery so if they could be working on them at home it would be awesome ... if the child is 'mastering' this at home than it could be a 'environmental' learning style thing where the child is shy and cannot perform in the 'group' so to speak and so forth ... but at least the conversation is going and in a way that is looking to support the child 'forward' verses starting out saying you are concerned the kid has a 'problem'.

You can get the screening tools for free from this website ...

http://www.ndds.ca/language.php