Assessing Children

 Children come in many shapes, sizes, socioeconomic, cultures, and varing levels of abilities. I beleive that when the whole child is assessed, we learn more information about  the different areas in a child's life.  Areas that should be assessed are emotional, physical growth,intelligence, creativity and cultural. As educators we know that these are important areas to promote a child's success in life.  As a pre-k teacher I look at and assess a childs emotional, physical, creativity and intelligence. However, I am aware that a childs culture and background also effects  a childs well being. The assessment of children have some very postive outcomes.  These assessments at early ages could lead to interventions for delays. According to the CDC in the United States, 17 % of children  have a development or behavioral disabilitiesor a language problem. The article also states that 50% of children are not diagnosed or recieve treatment until they begin school.

 I found that Unicef has done assessment dealing with six dimensions of a child's well being. The dimensions in the assessment are material well being, health and safety , Educational well being, Family and peer relationships , Behaviors and risk and subjective wellbeing. The assessment looked at 21 nations. The Netherlands  is in the top 10 for high ranking in all six dimensions. The United States is at the bottom third of rankings of five of the six. As I read this article I wonder why the United States are so far behind when we are supposed to be one of the best nations in the world.

Unicef.2007. A comprehensive assessment of the lives and wellbeing of children and adolescent in the economically advanced nations. Retrived December 10, 2010. http://www.unicef-irc.or/
ChildDevelopment: Retrieved December10, 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/