External Factors

Task 2

An explanation of how children and young people’s development is influenced by external factors:

Poverty & deprivation: This influences children’s development as children which live in poverty tend to live in poorer housing conditions, who may also not have an appropriate diet such as, not enough vitamins or minerals etc. This may then lead to diseases and illnesses. Overall this influences the physical, intellectual, emotional and social development.
Family environment and background: A child or young person who is not happy is also not developing in the correct way. All children and young people need to have love and affection off their families and carers to feel a sense of safety and security. Children and young people need stimulation, this will affect the healthy grow of the child if to much or to little is given! Children and young people also need opportunities to play. Children have to have a variety of play options, and young people have to have opportunities in leisure and sport.
Personal choices: The personal choices that all children make can affect their development, such as choosing to smoke, drink or take drugs all affect their brain development.
Being a looked after child: Meaning being in care or someone other than their parents. These children are the most vulnerable, as they lack a lot that other children in stable homes have such as: warmth, love and consistence. These children may also not form secure attachments to their carers as they may have with their parents. This will have a major affect on their social and emotional development. These children will always lack trust in people as a fear of them leaving! Being in care means that most of these children have been abused or neglected, which then leads to them not getting on so well at school.
Education: A good education is really important to a child’s development, this could be at school or at home with parents or carers. Some children and young people do not benefit from a good education and may not attend school on a regular basis or drop out. These children will find it hard with their employment opportunities.

Personal Factors

Some people believe that both our environment and our genes influence who we become.

Antenatal: This is the time between conception and birth, this can be influenced by what the mother doe whilst pregnant. I.e. smoke, drink, take drugs! Weather she is fit and healthy and has a good diet.
Prenatal: The actual time of birth a baby who is born before 37 weeks will more than likely need intensive care and therefore may have problems which might affect their learning.

Children’s and young people’s health is determined by their genetic inheritance as well as diet and how well they are kept. Although some kids are born with disabilities that will affect their development. I.e. down’s syndrome or a hearth deflect. Children may also produce asthma or diabetes which may limit them to the activities they can do, or may be out of school a lot at hospital or doctors appointments.

An explanation of how current practice is influenced by
Theories of development & framework to support development

A theory is a set of ideas as to which a child or young person will or may develop. Theories state what stage the child must go through before reaching another I.e. babble before they talk, crawl before they walk. Research shows evidence for and against these theories as there is no set rules of how children should develop, they are just theories.
Using theories at work you need to take a small idea from each theory and put them together so that they work well in your work setting. Some theories will over lap so you need to make sure you take the right information from each one so that this does not happen.