Referring to early development, and to its simulation in the asocial lesson, he writes:

"... the child’s evolution in understanding is such that every later stage ... grows out of and depends upon an earlier one. Every later aspect of understanding contains, so to speak, the earlier and when an activity is exercised the activity relives or rehearses the more fundamental …

Therefore when we come to teach we aim at exercising the lower levels of the child’s understanding, leaving the energy and momentum involved to produce an excess of variations which tends to consolidate and enrich the previous state of understanding as well as carrying the limits of the understanding forward to higher levels.

The object then is to have the child set out to do more of what he can already do, for longer, with more vigour and with more variations, etc. One aims then not at the child’s highest levels of functioning but at all levels below and up to these."

Terry

And it should be pointed out that Reasoning, as the culmination of the process of understanding-development, is itself a broad, inclusive term. From the outset Waldon resists the cognition/affect divide that sometimes plagues texts on psychology: early learning, or learning-how-to-learn, depends crucially upon reinforcement and motivation (the drive to do). It also identifies (positive and negative) reinforcement as the source of the emotions (emotional states).

So, as summarised on p.56 of the booklet The Waldon Approach to Education – summary and reference document - https://waldonassociation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/waldon-associates-the-waldon-approach-to-education-overview.pdf -

‘What is important is to not lose sight of the fact that learning and understanding are no more "cognitive" than they are emotional or physical.

Given our cultural training this might feel, in some sense, alien.

A straightforward way to deal with this is to simply bear in mind that learning is a thoroughly emotional process, and a very physical one too.’

This is why ‘Waldon therapist’ is such an unhelpful and misleading term for a Waldon facilitator. The emotions are intrinsically part of the learning system and, as such, are addressed by educational measures; so the Waldon facilitator, or practitioner, is essentially an educator. If a child strengthens their fundamental, general understanding, or their basic ability to learn-how-to-learn, as a result of Waldon intervention, then it means that, ipso facto, they are more emotionally robust, or resilient, than they were before, and therefore more open to learning opportunities in their day-to-day life.

By the way, do read the final section, pp.58-62, written in interview format in a bid to be more ‘accessible’.  Does it work?

Terry

It's linked to in the Understanding Understanding essay, on the Contents page (page 1), although you do have to click two links (second time p.11) to get to it, which is not ideal, admittedly.

Regarding extrapolation: Waldon uses it in the usual sense of 'making an estimate, or educated guess, based on current information, about what might happen in the future'.

So it is a function of anticipation that the baby develops through the emergence of inertial memory towards the end of the first year.

Terry

Postscript  It can now be found under Introductory Papers as a separate document - https://waldonassociation.org.uk/introductory-papers/

In the document titled ‘1. Notes for Waldon facilitators’ under Resources/Other Papers the footnote describes bodily integration as the process of the body becoming an organism, with the limbs and trunk acting as a unified whole, each part complementing and supporting the others.

It is worth pointing out that, in Waldon, the limbs include the head, so the bodily system can be viewed as a trunk with five protruding limbs. In early learning-development the activities of the upper three limbs create a region of increasingly familiar and ‘understood’ space at the natural convergence point of the head and arms/hands; this expands steadily to include, eventually, all of the child’s available bodily space.  Although, given human anatomy and the actions of joints, broadly frontal regions of space will tend to be the most thoroughly explored and understood by the developing child.

Terry

Postscript  There is now a complementary, longer paper - '2. More notes for Waldon facilitators' - in the same section. You might notice some overlap between the two documents: important points about the child's learning-development and the asocial lesson have been re-emphasised in the second paper.

‘Handicap’ behaviours are self-protective in nature: they are generated when the child feels in some way at a disadvantage. This most often happens when an excessive demand – an overdemand - is made on their understanding. The resulting anxiety, if it cannot be dissipated by the child re-engaging in appropriate play, may lead to the child escaping from the situation, physically or emotionally, or deflecting the unwanted demand, or producing compensatory self-delighting behaviours that make the situation tolerable.

‘Retardation’ behaviours are typically seen in the under-motivated child, who tends to minimise effort and take short cuts, and so gains less reinforcement from this reduced level of activity, which in turn decreases motivation, and so on in a downward spiral. This is the exact opposite of what is needed for optimal learning-development.

There are also the ‘cul-de-sac’ habits: as the name suggests these are dead-end activities which lead nowhere, developmentally. They may be seen as a special case of ‘retardation’ behaviours.

One behaviour may perform all these functions. For example, spinning objects, a 12 months level behaviour (although, as Waldon points out, it is often regarded as more 'advanced' than this) may be a self-delighting (‘handicap’) behaviour, mobilised to rapidly produce posiforcant to counter an access of negiforcant (sudden anxiety). It may be a retardation behaviour, reaping significant reward for very little effort, and frequently indulged in by the child with a severely limited repertoire of behaviours. And it is a classic cul-de-sac habit.

It is therefore sometimes necessary, for the sake of clarity, to speak of the ‘handicap’ or ‘retardation’ functions of behaviours, rather than using the stark terms ‘handicap behaviour’ or ‘retardation behaviour’.

This matter is also addressed in 'The Waldon Approach to Education – summary and reference document', pp 28-29 and 35-36 https://waldonassociation.org.uk/introductory-papers/

Terry

For a typically developing child coming to write and read, as we normally use the terms, what are the necessary precursor activities involved? And the same with the child making sense of 'number' (we need to define what we mean by that).

If a child is in some way seen as vulnerable because of a recognised problem with their learning-development how does this change our feelings about them playing with numbered or lettered cubes?

And what if the child is not seen as having any kind of difficulty but it transpires that they do, would that affect how we then view their engagement with these kinds of playthings?

Terry