ABSTRACT
This chapter helps teachers and others working with children to observe, to think about, and constantly to become more perceptive about relations between the environment and the individual child's needs. Space should be considered in relation to the number of children involved, their needs for motor discharge and vigorous activity, their varying interests and needs for areas for quieter types of activity. Children with marked separation anxiety may be recognized in certain instances by their own fear and crying or by tense and frozen postures and expressions. They need the mother's presence for an extended period of time while they gradually familiarize themselves with the new environment and develop a relationship with the new caretaker in a hospital or day-care center. Developmental needs in each of the above facets of the environment will differ at different age levels. The soothing or stimulating sound of mothers voice is the first important sound in the environment which babies recognize.
