Early Years advice sheets

Babies learn to roll to grasp for toys that are outside of their reach and to explore their environment.

Your child can be held supported in a standing position from an early age.

Talipes or club foot is when a newborn baby’s foot or feet turn inwards and point downwards.

We all have an imaginary midline running down the centre of our bodies and in order for us to effectively coordinate the two sides of our body together, we need to be able to cross that imaginary midline.

Fine motor skills are needed to complete activities such as writing, cutting with scissors, dressing, brushing teeth and hair, feeding and playing.

These are the skills needed to complete activities like feeding, dressing, playing or drawing.

Some children find dressing difficult due to movement or learning difficulties.

Children often have difficulty putting socks on correctly and end up with the heel on the top of their foot.

This Advice Sheet deals with taking clothes on and off. There is a separate Advice Sheet for shoes, socks and fasteners.

A child may have difficulties doing up buttons and zips for a variety of reasons such as poor bilateral coordination, postural instability, poor fine motor manipulation, reduced muscle tone, or visual perceptual difficulties.

Balance allows children to have better control over their bodies.

Sufficient quantity and quality of sleep is essential for lots of processes including memory consolidation, physical growth and repair as well as helping children to regulate their emotions and behaviours.

Children who have tactile defensiveness are sensitive to touch sensations and can be easily overwhelmed by, and fearful of, ordinary daily experiences and activities.

Sensory discrimination is the ability to correctly register (or recognise) sensory input on a neurological level in order to use it functionally.

The development of a child’s play skills are closely linked to the development of their cognitive, language and social skills.

Balance and the ability to co-ordinate both sides of the body at the same time can make it difficult for some children to ride a tricycle.

Tolerating being messy in play is an important area of development and difficulty with this can lead to problems with eating, art and craft, even going to the beach and playing on the sand.

Children may dislike this kind of play due to movement or sensory problems, lack of experience or because they have been sick a lot as babies.

As technology continues to progress, children have more and more access to different screens such as televisions, tablets, phones and computers at home and in their preschools and schools.

There are many reasons why children find using cutlery difficult, including movement or learning difficulties.

Why some children find coping with lumps difficult

Your child may be finding if hard to move on to finger foods because they have some movement or sensory difficulties.

All typically developing children are suspicious of trying new foods between the ages of 2 and 5.

Everyone involved in a child’s life can help them to develop communication by following these basic strategies.

Children learn language best from the people around them talking about the things that are happening to them and that they are interested in.

A bilingual child is one who acquires communicative skills in more than one language regardless of the relative proficiency in any of the languages understood and used (SLT, 2006).

Pre-school settings such as toddler groups, playgroup and nursery help your child to learn how to play with other children and how to talk and listen to others.

Expressive language is the way we put words together into phrases and sentences to express meaning.

For a child to be able to write and form letters properly in the future, they need initially to learn how to copy and form simple shapes.

Just as our eyes and ears send information about what we see and hear to the brain, parts of our muscles and joints sense the position of our body and send these messages to the brain as well.

Babies start to learn about language, speaking and communication as soon as they are born.

The clarity of children’s speech gradually improves over time.

Learning to talk, like learning to walk, is a skill which develops gradually.