Where did NAEYC’s idea of developmentally appropriate practice come from?
That a given activity might be developmentally suitable (or not) for children of a particular age was hardly a novel idea when NAEYC first addressed it. Psychologists and educators had long used the concept. The need for a more specific description became obvious in the mid-1980s, however, when NAEYC created a system to accredit programs that provided care and education to young children. Because the new accreditation guidelines required programs to provide “developmentally appropriate activities…materials…or expectations” for children, NAEYC needed to give programs some specifics of what that phrase meant. In 1986 NAEYC issued a formal position statement defining “developmentally appropriate practice.” The statement has been revised and reissued periodically, most recently in 2009. [Read a DAP Position Statement Chronology] Although some in the early childhood field disagree with aspects of developmentally appropriate practice as NAEYC defines it, most early childhood professional
