School-Age Assessment

I believe that everything about a child should be measured, physical, mental, cognitive, etc. Yes of course all children are different but there has to be a standard level that can be used for measuring. There is a program called Ages and Stages tells parents and caregivers where a child should be in relation to their age. Now this is not to say that if your child is not doing everything that is at the level displayed that they are delayed but it does give a guide for things that you should look for children to be doing around that time. Ages and Stages is a guide for what is developmentally appropriate for children from birth through adulthood. It talks about things such as when children, should start holding their head up then to when they should be walking and other developmental aspects. Ages and Stages measures the physical, social and cognitive skills of children and gives a baseline for where children should be developing. Like I said before do not think that just because your child is not writing as well as others in kindergarten that something is wrong but if the child is approaching the end of kindergarten and not progressing, then help is needed. We have to have some sort of guide for figuring out what developmental area that a child is exceeding or lacking in and use that for benefit.

This is the link for Ages & Stages: http://www.healthychildren.org/english/ages-stages/Pages/default.aspx

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I looked for assessment of children in Africa and I couldn’t find anything close to ages and stages but I did find that they assessed children’s participation in a family setting.

Here is the link and summary I found from Save the Children website:

An assessment of child participation in the family in South Africa

This publication (65 pages) intends to explore child participation, specifically in the family setting in South Africa and compare levels of participation in different cultural and religious contexts. It shares details on the methodology and findings from a systematic, informative assessment of children’s participation in the family. Save the Children Sweden commissioned an assessment in order to explore the wide range of cultural and religious practices that may impact on levels of participation in families in South Africa, to identify factors that hinder or enhance children’s participation. Possible links between the level of child participation in the family and the disciplinary practices used in the home were also explored during the assessment which was undertaken by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (C A S E). The assessment includes a literature review, a site based survey in 6 geographic sites (involving 1200 interviews with children of different age groups and adults) and focus groups with children and adults in 2 out of the 6 geographic sites. Key findings from the literature review are shared in this report and include: reflection on children’s constitutional rights in South Africa, as well as consequences of State signatories to the UNCRC and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; lessons learnt from similar research on children’s participation in families in the South and Central Asia region; and research into corporal punishment in South Africa.

http://www.case.org.za