Yoga for Babies and Children

This chapter describes how yoga is a means to relax the body, slowing breathing, and mentally calming down. Yoga in general includes physical postures / poses, breathing practices and movement meditation to improve self-regulation skills within the body and mind. An examination is made in this chapter of how yoga can be taught to babies and young children.

Adaptation of Cognitive Abilities Scale Into Turkish

This study aimed to adapt Cognitive Abilities Scale-2 (CAS-2) Preschool (24-47 months) Form into Turkish by focusing on 24-36-month children and conduct validity and reliability studies. The study utilized the survey model and a study group which consisted of 60 socio-culturally disadvantaged 24-36-month children in Bolu province. CAS-2 Preschool Form includes five subscales: oral language, reading, mathematics, handwriting, and enabling behaviors. Translation and reverse translation procedures were used to adapt the scale developed in English into Turkish. Expert opinion was sought for content validity. Test-retest correlation and item-total score correlation consistency measures were used to examine the psychometric properties of the Turkish form. Results demonstrated that the scale is a valid and reliable instrument to determine cognitive abilities in 24-36-month Turkish children. Infant and pre-school forms are recommended to be used for 3-47-months at every socio-cultural level.

Early Child Development

Early childhood is a period that is associated with the development process of children. It was determined that physical, motor, cognitive, language, emotional and social development, which was created in accordance with the characteristics of the developmental period of children in the early childhood, did not change much direction in later ages, the improvement in the same direction was higher. In the early childhood, children begin to learn the rules of society limited to their own environment. They understand language and show great development. Socialization and gender awareness begin to form. The researches revealed that behaviors and attitudes gained during this period shape the habits, attitudes, beliefs, value judgments and personality traits of the individual when they are adults. In this section, the changes in physical, motor, cognitive, language, emotional-social development of the first childhood are examined.

Prenatal Development

The prenatal period is a vital process for the mother and father to become conscious about the development of the baby. Particularly in this process, in which mental and physical changes are observed in the mother, both the mother and father should be supported in order for the baby in the mother's womb to have a healthy gestation and to prevent a risky pregnancy. In this regard, particularly with the impact of recent technological innovations and with the increasing awareness of parents through increasing literacy, it is reported that the mortality rate is decreased; however, it is also reported that severe injuries during pregnancy and disabled babies still exist. From this point of view, the basic concepts related to development, developmental areas, developmental principles, factors affecting development and prenatal development will be explained in detail in the antenatal development section.

Children With Adaptation and Behavior Problems

In this chapter, the adaptation and behavior problem is explained conceptually, and detailed information is given about causal factors related to biology, family, and school. Particularly in the preschool period, adaptation and behavioral problems such as thumb-sucking, nail-biting, enuresis, encopresis, masturbation, lying, aggression, stubbornness, jealousy, fear, anxiety, stealing, sleep disorders, and eating disorders are explained in this chapter, and precautions to reduce/prevent these problems are mentioned.

Developmental Tasks

Recognizing this period and the features in this period is regarded very important in terms of evaluating, following, and supporting child development. The concept of a developmental task should be approached in each period in order to understand the development. An individual should be biologically ready to carry out the developmental tasks belonging to the period he is in. However, in addition to biological readiness, the environmental conditions like the education environment should be appropriate in order to carry out the developmental tasks. Especially in the early years, schools have crucial roles in children's fulfillment of the developmental tasks and developing. Development periods and development duties should be known in order to observe and understand the development process better. Based on this view, the development periods and the development duties are to be explained in this section.

Contribution of Outdoor Play Activities to Infant and Toddler Development

The natural environment has generally a structure to support all areas of development of children. It can be said that the interior spaces are deprived of naturalness and have less stimulation compared to outdoor spaces. Playgrounds outdoors have forms, textures, heights, and mobility in a natural or artificial landscape have the energy to encourage children to play and move. The first years of the early childhood period are of a vital importance in terms of all areas of development. Pedagogues or parents should provide the activities and environments that will enable the infants and toddlers to get pleasure out of life and that can create a learning skill and give new skills to the children at same time. Therefore, in this study, outdoor and outdoor play activities that will support the development areas of 0-36-month-old children will be discussed.

Middle Childhood Development

Child development is segmented into five periods and the bridge between early childhood and adolescence is named as “middle childhood.” One of the milestones of this period is schooling. Middle childhood children start learning about the world; their roles, responsibilities and how to participate in this world by communicating with others besides the family members. These abilities are gained mostly at school with peer relations. In this chapter, the developmental areas of middle childhood children will be discussed with examples from recent studies.

Children in Hospital

Visiting a hospital for hospitalization or treatment is one of the foremost factors triggering stress for children. Under this stress, lie both the restriction of a child's freedom and independence due to getting into an unknown environment and the rapidly changing events around the child. The child's reactions may become even more aggressive, especially if they feel the fear and anxiety experienced by their parents. Based on this importance, this chapter focuses on the responses of children to hospital life according to their developmental stages and on what can be done regarding their adaptation in hospitals.

Children at Risk

Children's exposure to many risk factors such as; need for protection, living on the streets, working, abuse and neglected, pushed into crime, exposed to violence, obliged to immigrate due to war, living under socio-economic disadvantageous conditions, having chronic diseases, being a disabled child and living in divorced families can arise from both their families and from the social structure. Throughout the world, many children live at risk due to various reasons. Irrespective of the reasons, which risk group the children enter and the factors causing this situation should be examined. According to the obtained data, the factors causing to such situations should be determined and necessary precautions should be taken. Thus, the negative conditions, under which the children are, can be improved and the children can be reintegrated into society.