OUR METHODS

Most parents, who follow our guidance in child development, display great confidence in the future of their own child. This happens because we take the guesswork out of parenting with our virtual Instruction Manual for raising children. Instead of worrying “what do I do next with my child?” you only have to go to one of our low cost Developmental Skills Tension© Workbooks.

At the heart of our method is encouraging you to develop the bond with your child. “Bond to learn” is Veronica’s motto. We tell you what, when and how to go about encouraging Milestone development in your child. This enables you to be proactive if your child isn’t progressing as well as you would like. It also allows you to manage your child’s Developmental Skills Tension.

If things are not working out as well as you would like, we provide you with immediate referral to appropriate specialists. If you want to ask a question or leave a comment please go to our Blog.

Technical information

If you have a professional background in childhood development or just out of interest, you might like to know a little more about our methods, please read on.

In 1992 Kevin was introduced to M. Ahrens formerly of the New Zealand Department of Health. Ahrens in turn introduced Kevin, by telephone, to Professor N. Singh a former colleague. Singh, now retired, was at that time Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the Medical College of Virginia, a Clinical Professor of Psychology at the Virginia Commonwealth University, and Director of research at the Commonwealth Institute for Child and Family Studies, Richmond, Virginia.

During the nineteen seventies,Ahrens and Singh, who at the time was completing his doctorate at Aukland University,had collaborated in a computer program to integrate 19 of the then existing Early Childhood Development Scales. Their aim was to provde a tool that could be used to take third party inventory of a child's performance of early developmental skills and facilitate intervention. The inventory process and subsequent intervention would be administered by the primary carer, usually the mother.

A feature of the program was that it would flag any developmental deficits that required professional intervention. Their R&D endeavour was very time consuming and expensive as all the programming had to be carried out on Mainframe computers. This was at a time that predated personal computers. The result was a DOS program that was effective but not user friendly by today's navigation standards.

Through Australian Institute of Learning and Cognitive Development Pty Ltd, Kevin was licenced to use the program. He used this as the basis of his research.

Kevin's background in Philosophy had enabled him to identify a number of elements that were causing many parents to feel inadequate. One of these was a basic misunderstanding of child development. This was caused in no small way by often competing theories of child developement and parents role in it. Another was parental isolation resulting from the breakdown of the extended family.

The situation was compounded by other circumstances. Up to that time, most early childhood development programs were restricted to seriously delayed and impaired children. Clinical models are by definition costly. Thus developmental intervention was generally administered in paediatric hospitals and other institutional environments and subsidised by the state.

An unfortunate consequence was the de facto hamstringing of early childhood development profesionals by economic considerations. This had led to a practical classification of children into two broad groups. One was a group of about 20% requiring varying levels of intervention and the rest of about 80% who, it was claimed, would eventually learn how to perform the full range of early child development skills.

Adding to this dilemma, was the fact that most parents believed that their role in the development of their children was limited. Furthermore if they were concerned about their individual child's development, screening was recommended. If the results did not show that the child was at risk, the professional was often put into a no win situation. A frequent escape was to counsel the parents that they shouldn't worry, with the mantra "time solves most developmental problems".

The resultant numerically large group of concerned parents, as well as those who wanted to give their children the best start in life, was the principle reason behind Kevin and Veronica establishing a practical guidance system through the complexities of early childhood development. They used the program developed by Ahrens and Singh as a basis for their system which they entitled Developmental Skills Tension© Workbooks.

Because Developmental Skills Tension© Workbooks enable parents to both guide and monitor their child’s progress, they can respond quickly to any developmental aberrations and alert the team at first18months. The team then evaluates the impediments to the child's developmental progress. If the impediment do not appear to be pedagogical but are consistent with physiological or psychological disorders, the team then refers the parents to appropriate medical practitioners or developmental psychologists.

The thousands of families who have participated over the last 17 years, have gained confidence in their indispensable role as parents. This has enhanced their feelings of achievement from witnessing enthusiastic, motivated and competent children.

Also by understanding their own early childhood development and Developmental Skills Tension, their parental self esteem has been enhanced. At the same time they experience a general feeling of connectiveness arising out of the relations they formed with the virtual extended family of other parents using Developmental Skills Tension© Workbooks.

Finally Kevin and Veronica were assisted in their early work by Simon Rowney who has a background in analytical philosophy. It was Simon who saw the necessity of any authentic theory of development being subsumed by the Bio-Medical model. He argued that there is a gap between teaching early developmental skills and understanding them. Furthermore understanding is limited whereas the need to teach is imperative. Parents must teach their children early developmental skills in the most efficient manner yet they are constrained because the nature of these skills and their development is mysterious. For parental teaching purposes, learning theory, while not wholly irrelevant, must take a backseat to established teaching practice.

Since the role of 'first18months.com.au' is to guide parents in their undertaking, Simon maintained that prudence dictated that it submit to the most advanced of the biological teaching practices, namely medicine and in particular the Bio-Medical model. This brings development theory into the domain of other medico-development disciplines such as the sports sciences.

Finally Simon has identified 'Extrinsic subjective cognitive load'© as a significant influence on working memory. He has a particular interest in criteria for measuring cognitive efficiency in cognitive systems.