The use of infant observation in nursery (0-3 years)

Observation training, according to the infant observation model (Bick 1964) started in 1995 in the kindergartens of Forlimpopoli, Meldola, Castrocaro Terme, Terra del Sole and S. Sofia, all municipalities around Forlì. Two groups have been formed, meeting once a month for two and a half hours, both including teachers from two kindergartens. The groups are small (8-10 people), to facilitate the sharing of experiences and creating a good work alliance. Observations focus on the interactive behaviour of the child when entering or leaving the nursery school, when feeding, sleeping, playing, or at story-time. While working at the nursery the teacher finds space and time to observe the child, then a space-time to write his/her observations following the movement of the recalled scenes and at last, a third space-time made up of a group of teachers who read and discuss the observations together with a supervisor. Therefore, within the work group, there is a more and more complex reading and comprehension of the observational data: these transformation circuits come back to the adult-child relational field, giving the adult the possibility to give a name to confused moods and to formless communications, so as to make access to the representation of experiences easier for the child.