Aussie Childcare Network Forum

I need help in this question if anyone can help.
Explain why observations we collect may be insufficient in gaining a full understanding of the child's overall development and why they need to be collected over a period of time.
thanks any help will be appreciated.

Id say that usually when we do obs we are looking (usually) at one or a few key areas of development, although this does help us judge their development it sometimes is not a good indicator of overall development.
We gather obs over a period of time as not all children develop alike at the same pace, just because X is not using sentences to talk does not mean that X has some language or speech development problems, they may just be developing at a slower rate, however because we observe over a period if you see that X still is not speaking in sentences 6 mnths later you would be a little worried.
Taking obs over a timeframe gives us a better indication of differences in development and actual developmental problems.

Just to add on to what fefe says observations taken over time will show a progress a child has made. You might look at a child who can, for example, only recognise numbers up to 5, but when you look back over time, the obs will show that 6 months ago, he only knew 1 and 2, so progress has definitely been made, even though it still might be where you would expect, nevertheless this child is progressing.
Also, it can reflect how you are scaffolding this child's learning. For instance, you may not have really talked about colours with them before but know you have done lots of art and discussed the names of colours, so they are showing more knowledge/are developing in their abilities.

thanks