Child Development and Early Childhood Care
What the exam tests
This domain checks whether you can recognise typical development, name the theory behind an observation, and convert both into an activity decision or a referral at the Anganwadi Centre (AWC).
Domains and milestones
Development is grouped into physical/motor, cognitive, language, socio-emotional and moral domains. Motor control follows cephalocaudal (head to toe) and proximodistal (trunk to limbs) sequences. Gross motor: head-holding about 3 months, sitting without support about 8 months, walking alone 12–15 months. Fine motor: palmar grasp 4–5 months, pincer grasp 9–12 months. Language: cooing and babbling by 6 months, first word near 12 months, two-word phrases 18–24 months. Social smile 6–8 weeks; parallel play typical at 2–3 years.
Theory to apply
Piaget: sensorimotor (0–2, object permanence), preoperational (2–7, egocentrism, no conservation), concrete operational (7–11), formal operational (11+). Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development, scaffolding, more knowledgeable other. Erikson: trust versus mistrust in infancy. Bowlby and Ainsworth: attachment. Bronfenbrenner: ecological systems.
Worked example
A four-year-old insists the taller glass holds more water after the same quantity is poured from a short wide glass. Reasoning: the child centres on one dimension and cannot conserve - normal preoperational thinking, not a defect. The correct AWC response is hands-on comparison with sand and water in different containers, not a lecture or worksheet.
Traps
Mixing Piaget's stages with Vygotsky's ZPD; treating milestone ages as rigid deadlines instead of ranges; missing red flags such as loss of acquired skills, no babbling by 12 months, or not walking by 18 months, all of which need referral.