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Back to Marks and Mind Book Series The Importance of Mark-making to Child Development from a Neurobiological Point of View................................................................................... 1 Rules of Thumb for Good Caregiving Practice........................................................ 5 Who, What and Why Three roles...................................................................................................................... 9 Questions and Answers for Professional Caregivers.............................................. 13 Stories about Mark-making Using stories about nine children, including one autistic child to discuss why visual alertness, laughter, scribbles, child-art marks, and the use of metaphor are important milestones in children......................................... 25 Scribbles, Development and Meaning...................................................................... 55 The Developmental Stages of Scribbling and Drawing: Beyond Child Art Overview........................................................................................................................ 69 The Stages of Scribbling: Early (8-12 months, or up to 1 year), Middle Scribbling (12-24 months, or 1-2 years) and Mature/High Scribbling (24-36 months, or 2-3 years) with First Transitional/Transformational Stage (24-36 months, or 2-3 years) ............................................................................... 72 The Stages of Drawing: Early Drawing (36-48 months, or 3-4 years), Middle (48-60 months, or 4-5 years), and Mature/High Drawing (60-72 months, or 5-6 years or older) with Second Transitional/ Transformational Stage (60-72 months, or 5-6 years old and beyond), and Third Transitional/Transformational Stages (60-72 months, or 5-6 years old) ....................................................................................................................... 73 Procedure for Caregivers................................................................................................ 74 Early Scribbling and Developmental Stages, 8-12 months: What to look for, nurture and protect.............................................................................. 79 Physical, emotional, social, verbal milestones.................................................................. 79 How the Stage of Early Scribbling relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................................................................... 79 Middle Scribbling and Developmental Stages, 12-24 months: What to look for, nurture and protect.............................................................................. 87 Physical, emotional, social, verbal milestones.................................................................. 87 How the Stage of Middle Scribbling relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................................................................... 87 Mature/High Scribbling and Developmental Stages, 24-36 months: What to look for, nurture and protect.............................................................................. 99 Physical, emotional, social, verbal milestones.................................................................. 99 How the stage of High or Mature Scribbling relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................................................... 99 Still At 24-36 Months: First Transitional/Transformational Stage of Scribbling: Heading into Drawing.................................................................................................... 101 How the First Transitional/Transformational Stage relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth................................................................................ 103 Early Drawing and Developmental Stages, 36-48 months: What to look for, nurture and protect.............................................................................. 111 Physical, emotional, social, verbal milestones.................................................................. 111 How the stage of Early Drawing relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................................................................... 113 Middle Drawing and Developmental Stages, 48-60 months: What to look for, nurture and protect.............................................................................. 117 Physical, emotional, social, verbal milestones.................................................................. 117 How the stage of Middle Drawing relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................................................................... 118 Mature/High Drawing and Developmental Stages, 60-72 months: Representational and Abstract Drawing and the Metaphorical Child. Getting ready for reading and writing words.................................................................. 122 Physical, emotional, social, verbal milestones.................................................................. 122 How the Stage of Mature/High Drawing relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................................................... 125 The Second Transitional/Transformational Mark-making Stage: Proto mathematics/music/writing, 60-72 months and beyond......................................... 126 How the Second Transitional/Transformational Mark-making Stage relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth........................................................ 126 The Third Transitional/Transformational Mark-Making Stage: Drawing/Writing, 60-72 months and beyond................................................................. 127 How the Third Transitional/Transformational Mark-making Stage, or Drawing/Writing, relates to visual, emotional and verbal growth...................... 127 Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 131 Parallel Systems: Child-Marks and Child-Speech.......................................................... 132 Lesson Plans for a Marks-based Literacy Program:................................................ 137 Getting Ready: Warm-up exercises for caregivers.................................................................................. 139 Warm-up exercises with children 1 to 3......................................................................... 141 Early Work: daily scribbling with very young children 1 to 3........................................ 144 Starting the Drawing/Writing Program Beginning benchmarks for attention, mood, and behavior............................................... 147 More warm-ups: Drawing in the air........................................................................................................... 148 Tracing/talking/writing................................................................................................... 148 Starting the Five-Step Drawing/Writing Lesson Plans Materials, procedure....................................................................................................... 150 Preliminary Drawing and Talking/Writing..................................................................... 151 A Four Year-Old's Preliminary Drawing and Writing.................................................... 154 Lesson Plan I - Step One: Contour.......................................................................................................................... 157 Blind Contour................................................................................................................ 157 Regular Contour............................................................................................................ 161 Lesson Plan II - Step Two: Basic Shapes.................................................................................................................. 163 Euclidean........................................................................................................................ 163 Organic.......................................................................................................................... 168 Fractal............................................................................................................................ 170 Lesson Plan III - Step Three: Light/Medium/Dark....................................................................................................... 174 Lesson Plan IV - Step Four: The Perfect Whole.......................................................................................................... 178 Pattern for Practice: A multi-sensory set of writing exercises........................................ 179 Lesson Plan V - Step Five: The Composite Abstraction, CA#1 and CA#2............................................................... 183 Closing drawing and writing: Quick evaluation............................................................. 189 Closing benchmarks for attention, mood and behavior: Quick evaluation....................... 191 How caregivers and children feel about mark-making after the scribbling exercises and the Five Drawing/Writing Lesson Plans................................................... 193 Translating cross more than Two Sign Systems...................................................... 197 Where do We go from Here?....................................................................................... 207 Useful information about technology............................................................................. 208 Autism: induced or inherited?........................................................................................ 210 Television and computer watching and children............................................................. 211 Childhood development and electronics......................................................................... 212 Using the body to think................................................................................................. 213 Research with speech and behavior................................................................................ 213 Research with vision and action..................................................................................... 214 Brain science for young children................................................................................... 214 Toward a new, brain-based science of early childhood................................................... 215 Neurobeneficial intervention.......................................................................................... 216 Neurobeneficial caregiving............................................................................................. 216 Neuroconstructive experience........................................................................................ 216 Neuroconstructive childcare............................................................................................ 218 Toward a Peaceable Kingdom................................................................................... 221 Growing past ancient neurochemistries.......................................................................... 222 Rage control and the possibilities of peace..................................................................... 225 Research Questions..................................................................................................... 229 The Peek-a-Boo Principle........................................................................................... 251 Thirteen Brain-based Principles of Child Development........................................ 255 Acknowledgements Bibliography................................................................................................................. 269 Photography................................................................................................................... 269 Children.......................................................................................................................... 269 Other sources................................................................................................................. 270

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