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This material is a set of two videos, acompanied by two manuals, focused on the amazing first year in children's life and their parents, viewed through a particular baby and his family: Orson, his parents and brother. Video and Manual 1 (First year development & shaping the brain) go through the main milestones in children's development from when they are born until they reach the first year of life and shows how the significant others make enormous contributions to children's development. The description of these important steps achieved during this period of time is complemented by research findings concerning babies and their relationship with their parents and other significant people in their lives. There is also information regarding how these early interactions affect the way babies' brains develop. The video illustrates the information provided in the manual showing real-life scenes of Orson's daily life and his parents' reactions.
Video and manual 2 (Observation sequences: attachment & holistic development, the first year) are directed to train different professionals - early years practitioners, childminders, health visitors, social workers and teachers - in children's development. Therefore, in Video 2 there is a collection of relatively short videos - between 1.5 and 3 minutes approximately - of Orson interacting with significant others at differents points in time, from as early as the day he was born. These sequences include main achievements and developments in the first year, such as early conversations, interest in objects, independent feeding, stranger anxiety, social referencing and joint attention. All these squences are described in manual 2, with accurate explanations of the developmental significance of the behaviours and interactions observed, together with useful suggestions for how to encourage these skills in professional training. There are also suggestions on how to foster parental skills at this stage.
The videos and manuals are clear, easy to follow and well designed, in such a way that evidence, research and practice can be easily linked. There are also suggestions for further reading listed at the back of each manual
In sum, the manuals and the videos constitute an invaluable source for professionals in charge of training practitioners, trainees in early years, and even parents, to achieve improved understanding of children's development and, also, improved practice. That all the evidence in the videos is collected through natural instances in every-day situations of interaction is a clear strength of this publication, as the evidence on early child development is often collected in the context of set-up laboratory situations. Nevertheless, probably the main contribution of the sequences is the longditudinal perspective. Even when real -life situations could be observed, it is not common to have the opportunity to follow up the same child through a longer period of time. In this sense the videos clearly reflect the atonishing advance in cognitive, emotional and social development achievable by most children. This amazement cannot be accomplished by isolated observations or simply reading books about development: only in the natuaralistic observation of particular children can we grasp the magnitude of the qualititive and quantitative changes occurring during this wonder year.
Valeska Grau Cardenas 2009 (copyright)