Greenspan Developmental Analysis

Greenspan’s six developmental levels are: 1) Self-regulation and Interest in the World, 2) Engaging and Relating, 3)Intentionality and Two-Way Communication, 4) Social Problem Solving, Mood regulation and Formation of a Sense of Self, 5) Creating Symbols and Use of words and Ideas, 6) Emotional Thinking, Logic and a Sense of Reality (Greenspan & Weider, 2006). In stage 1; Self- regulation and Interest in the World, the focus is on the child’s ability to process their environment with their senses and filter out distractions while ,being able to focus, engage and share attention with others. Stage 2; Engaging and relating, refers to the child’s ability to engage and build meaningful relationships with others, particularly their primary caregivers. Stage 3; Intentionality and Two-way communication, involves what Greenspan (2006) refers to as ‘Circles of Communication’. Circles of communication refers to the child’s ability to intentionally engage in purposeful, two- way interactions. This means that the child will be able to initiate a communicative interaction with …show more content…
The child is able to use two-way communication and circles of communication in order to problem solve, as well as being able to control their intense emotional feelings through emotional signaling. For example, if a child wants a particular toy, he is able to signal this desire to his mother by gesturing, or pointing towards the toy. If the child is not satisfied or not given the toy he desires, and begins to get frustrated or annoyed he is able to further express this annoyance by gesturing and vocalizing, by grunting or whimpering, to get the message across to his mother before his emotions become too intense. Children who are unable to adequately express themselves in this way or who do not receive reciprocal responses, may become withdrawn or act out with