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  2. Individualizing Care for Infants and Tod...
  3. Context for Individualizing Care
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Individualizing Care for Infants and Toddlers

Individualizing Care for Infants and Toddlers

    Expand All

  • Why Is Individualizing Care Important for Infants and Toddlers?
  • Considerations for Individualizing Care
    • School Readiness
    • Curriculum
    • Interactions
    • Interactions and Temperament
    • Routines
    • The Daily Schedule
    • Experiences
    • Environment
  • Regulations, Structures, and Practices That Effectively Support Individualized Care
    • Small Group Size
    • Low Ratios of Teachers and Family Child Care Providers to Children and Small Caseloads of Families for Home Visitors
    • Primary Caregiving
    • Continuity of Care
  • Developing and Strengthening Staff Competence in Individualizing Care
  • Context for Individualizing Care
    • The Role of Ongoing Child Assessment in Individualizing Care
    • Individualizing Care and Ongoing Child Assessment in Home-Based Programs
    • The Role of Curriculum in Individualizing Care
    • Revisiting Observation
  • Reflecting and Interpreting: A Closer Look
    • Reflecting and Interpreting in the Moment
    • Reflecting and Interpreting for Daily and Weekly Planning
    • Reflecting and Interpreting Over Time
    • More about Interpretation
  • Planning for Individualization: A Closer Look
    • Planning for Possibilities
  • Implementing Plans
  • Reflecting on Implementation
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix: Questions and Suggestions for Reflection
  • References

The Role of Curriculum in Individualizing Care

Child pouring liquid into a funnel being held by an adult.

As noted in the Curriculum section, individualizing care takes place within a program’s research-based infant and toddler curriculum. Education staff have many ways to find out about children’s development and learning, interests, temperament, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and other strengths and needs. In addition to informal observations and ongoing child assessment, staff learn about children through:

  • Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) for children with diagnosed disabilities
  • Resources that provide information about children’s language experiences, such as Gathering and Using Language Information That Families Share
  • Infant Toddler Temperament Tool (IT3)
  • Frequent conversations and other communications with children’s families

These resources inform how staff use their curriculum to intentionally plan learning environments, experiences, routines, and interactions that are individually responsive to infants and toddlers.

Read more:

Curriculum

Resource Type: Article

National Centers: Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning

Last Updated: December 22, 2020

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