Child care, developmental delay and institutional practice

Child care, developmental delay and institutional practice This research dr aws on Valsiner's (1987) individual socio-ecological approach to developmen t, and Miller and Goodnow's (1995) concept of a cultural practice. It shows how institutions for children act as cultural settings that contain child- care practices that advance or retard children's development through the fo rms of social exchange and activities they promote. Formal assessments of a group of institutionalised children indicated significant delay in five de velopmental domains. Child-care workers were observed interacting with thes e children in a range of activity settings within the institutional routine . Staff behaviour towards the children was found to be highly regulatory an d characterised by block treatment. Interactions allowed little opportunity for the scaffolding of psychological capacities beyond those that were fun ctional within the ideological, personnel, and material constraints of the institution. We argue that regulative styles of care-giving explain, at lea st in part, the developmental delays shown by the institutionalised childre n, and that these styles do little to address developmental problems associ ated with inadequate care prior to institutionalisation. It is argued that institutional culture promotes regulative care through the establishment of routines that facilitate multiple care-giving under conditions of scarce p ersonnel resources.