Running Head: CHILD OBSERVATION/ STUDY PROJECT

Child Observation Study Project Monica Huttelmayer Ivy Tech Community College

Child Observation/ Study Project

The subject is a five year old male. He has dirty blond hair and baby blue eyes. He was born on December 28, 2006 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Even though hes 5 years old , he has not yet entered a formal education school system, due to his birthday being later in the year. However, hes had some minor education from various Day Cares hes attended. At the moment his parents are in the middle of a separation, soon to be divorced. He has recently moved in with his mother and her new boyfriend. His 13 year old sister comes and stays with them every once and awhile, but she primarily lives with her grandmother. His 18 year old brother hasnt been around much later, because hes living with friends. The Subject has gone through a lot of changes in the last couple of months. During the week day the Subject spends a lot of time with his mothers new boyfriend or loving family members while his mother is at work. His daily activities during the week day consist of watching cartoons, watching movies, playing video games, playing with his toy cars and napping. During the week end, his mother tries to spend extra time with him and treat him out to something special. Sometimes they go out to eat, to the movies, Chucky Cheese or anything else fun that he might enjoy. On Sunday, in the morning, they go to church and after church they go out to eat, usually to Long John Silvers or a Mexican Restaurant. The Subjects favorite foods are chicken nuggets, pizza, yogurts, chips and all kinds of fruits. He usually eats a small breakfast, a medium sized lunch and a medium sized dinner, with some snacks in between meals if he wants. He can be picky about what he eats . He doesnt like green beans, celery, and broccoli. The Parent didnt really give much information on the Subjects medical information. She said in his past he had some problems, but they had been resolved and was now a healthy

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normal boy. In the past, he used to have problems breathing. They thought it might be asthma, but the doctors ruled it out. Before more tests could be done to figure out what was wrong, it went away. I got together with the Subject at my house, while the Parent was at a gymnastics meet for her daughter, to test his physical/ motor development, cognitive development and social/emotional development. Our session only took one visit, but it was over the course of several hours. The Subjects mother dropped him off after church around noon and didnt come back until around six oclock at night. She then stayed and hung out until around ten oclock at night. While she was here, I had her answer a questionnaire sheet for me that I had prepared in advanced. According to the website, greatschools.org, a website that acquires valuable information on kids of all ages, some of the gross motor development milestones for a five year old child are runs in an adult manner, walks on tip toes, broad jumps, skates, jump ropes and, balance on one leg for 10 seconds (Destefanis & Firchow, n.d). Some fine motor development milestones for a five year old child are hand preference is established, can lace up shoes (not tie), grasp a pencil like an adult, colors within the lines, cut and paste simple shapes (Destefanis & Firchow, n.d). During my time with the Subject, I tested him on a few of these things. The first gross motor exercise we did was the jump rope. He was not happy about it. He told me he didnt know how to jump rope. So I talked him into trying it a couple times just to see, but he was right, he couldnt jump rope. Then we walked on our tip toes and he did just fine. He also balanced on one leg for ten seconds and jumped on one leg for ten seconds. The last physical

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activity we did was trying to tie his shoe. He couldnt do that one either. So the only two he couldnt do was the jump rope and tying his shoe. The subject fits right where hes supposed to on all but one account. The website says tying shoes doesnt come until age 6 (Destefanis & Firchow, n.d). For the fine motor development, I had him color me a picture. According to the website, greatschools.org, a five year old should be able to color in the lines (Destefanis & Firchow, n.d); however, that was not the case in this situation. The subjects coloring was all over the place and not everything was covered. The subject also only used one color (blue) until I asked him if he wanted another. Then he added a little bit of orange to the picture. The entire picture ended up being blue with a little bit of orange. The one thing I did notice that he did was separate the objects while he colored them. He said he colored the rocks, grass, and car blue and the road orange. However, he actually only colored a small portion of the road orange. Some of the road was colored blue and another part of the road was left completely uncolored. I also gave him a worksheet where he had to cut on a dotted line and cut out shapes and paste them in the correct column. There were four columns and each column had two cut out shapes that had to be pasted in it. He did excellent at this task. Another thing I noticed was that his hand preference has been established: hes right handed. As far as fine motor skills go, I would say this Subject could use some work. He cannot color in the lines and he grips his pencil at the very end, with his hand clasped around it like a fist. He doesnt get much control over the pencil this way and it shows in his handwriting when he attempts to write his name. However, at other tasks he does excellent, such as, the shape worksheet.

Child Observation/ Study Project

According to my Educational Psychology textbook, Piaget, a well-known psychologist that worked on cognitive development, says that five year olds are in a stage he called the preoperational stage. This is where the child should have some logical thinking but its based primarily on hunches and intuition, rather than on conscious awareness of logical principles (Ormrod, 2011). Piaget also came up with certain tasks call the Piagetian Conservation Tasks. These tasks include experiments to test length, mass, area, weight and volume (The Seven Piagetian Conservation Tasks, n.d). I presented three of these tasks to my Subject. The first one I showed him was an experiment on determining which row of pennies was longer. We started the task off with two rows of pennies lined up at equally length and equal number. I asked him which row had more pennies. He replied that they had the same number. I had him count the pennies to reinforce the fact that there were five pennies in each row. Once we determined that the rows were equal, I spread the second row out to make it twice as long as the first row. I repeated my early question, which row is longer. He then replied that the second one was longer. I asked him why he thought about this and he replied, Because its longer. The next thing I did with him had the same kind of principle as the penny task, but with lines. The lines were the same length and were arranged one above the other. I asked him which was longer and he said they were the same. Then I took the bottom line and moved it farther to the right. I again asked him which was longer and he replied the bottom line. I asked him why and he said it was because it was longer. The last task I did with him was a volume task. I had two clear cups filled with the same amount of water. I asked him which cup had more water. He replied they had the same

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amount. I then took one of the cups and dumped it into a clear medium sized bowl. This time I asked him which had more water: the cup that was still filled with water or the bowl. He replied that they had the same amount. I asked him why and he replied that he didnt know why; they just did. As far as the Piagetian Conservation Tasks, the Subject didnt do too well. However, he did complete the aspect of Piagets theory that he based his conclusions on hunches rather than any logic. He may have gotten the first two tasks wrong, but the third task his answer was spot on. So I would say that the Subject fits the preoperational stage. To test the Subjects memory capabilities, I had him play an online memory game called Music Memory Turtle (Music Memory Turtle, n.d). The turtle had a bunch of different color shapes on his back and they would light up and play a musical tone. The object of the game was to press the buttons in the correct order. In doing so, the turtle would take a step forward. The turtle was in a race and to get him to the finish line you had to keep playing the game. If you got an answer wrong, the turtle actually took a step backwards. The subject took a while getting use to the idea of the game, but once he got it, he finished the game rather quickly. It took him about four tries. So the Subjects memory is decent. According to the website, greatschools.org, some of the language and thinking (cognitive) development milestones are speaks fluently (correct plurals, pronouns, tenses), very interested in words and language, understands opposites, can identify basic shapes, uses complex language, confuses fantasy and reality, doesnt use adult logic (Destefanis & Firchow, n.d).

Child Observation/ Study Project

I tested my subject as far, as language, on plural versus singular and opposites. I had my subject complete two worksheets: one on opposites, one on plural vs. singular. The opposites worksheet had six pictures on it and under the pictures was a word describing the picture. The pictures were separated three on the right and three on the left, the object was to match the word on the right with its opposite on the left. The words were off-on, full-empty, and loudquiet. The Subject matched all the words correctly. The plural vs. singular worksheet was a little more difficult for my subject. The worksheet had nine pictures on it with the words singular and plural underneath each picture. The directions told the Subject to circular the choice (singular or plural) that matched the picture above. For example, the second picture was that of a single ball, so the Subject circled the word singular. The fifth picture was of two pairs, so the Subject circled plural. The subject only missed two out of nine. I tested my subjects knowledge of his shapes with two worksheets. The first worksheet had lot of circles, triangles, stars, squares and rectangles arranged all over the place in different sizes. The directions then had him color certain things certain colors. For example, the Subject colored all the small circles red and the biggest triangle green. The Subject followed the directions really well and his coloring, while still not in the lines, was better than the car picture. The second worksheet I had him work on had a hot air balloon with shapes inside it, while underneath the balloon there was all the shapes that could be cut out and put in the balloon. Instead of having the Subject cut the shapes out and paste them to the balloon, I simply had him go through each one and tell me all of the shapes names and then had him match the color in the shape on the balloon what the color was at the bottom. He did very well on this worksheet too. The shapes on this worksheet were star, circle, rectangle, square, oval, heart

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and triangle. Overall, I think the test results were very good for the age of my subject in regard to his cognitive development. As for the Subjects Social/Emotional Development theres four main points Im tested/talked to him about. The first one was Eriksons Psychosocial Stages. According to my Education Psychology book, the Subject would be a part of the initiative vs. guilt stage of Eriksons psychosocial stages. This is where Preschoolers are increasingly able to accomplish tasks on their own, and with this growing independence come many choices about activities to be pursued. Sometimes children take on projects they can readily accomplish, but at other times they undertake projects that are beyond their capabilities or that interfere with other peoples plans and activities. If parents and preschool teachers encourage and support childrens efforts, while also helping them make realistic and appropriate choices, children develop initiative-independence in planning and undertaking activates. But if, instead, adults discourage the pursuit of independent activities or dismiss them as silly and bothersome, children develop guilt about their needs and desires (Ormrod, 2011). In order to determine whether or not the Subject had initiative or guilt in this stage, I asked the Parent some questions in the questionnaire that would help give some insight. I asked if the parent discourage the Subject when he pursues independence in planning and undertaking activities; the Parent answered no. I asked the Parent to name some activities that the Subject gets to plan independently. The Parent responded with Brushing his teeth, picking out a shirt to wear, feeding the dogs a treat and putting toys away. Based on the Parents answer I would place the Subject in the initiative side of the stage.

Child Observation/ Study Project

In order to determine which stage the Subject is at in Kohlbergs moral reasoning I asked the Subjects Parent to pick between stage one and stage two. Both stages are in level one, preconventional morality, of Kohlbergs moral reasoning. The Parent chose stage two, the Subject recognizes others have needs and tries to meet their own n eeds and others needs simultaneously. She then turned around and talked to me about an example of a time when the Subject did this. She told me how early that day the Subject had been eating jelly beans and fed some to my dog and when she told him to stop (my dog isnt supposed to eat people food) he said, but Casper was hungry too. The Subject seems to have an understanding of empathy and moral development. When it comes to gender typing, I would say the Subject is very much a stereo typical boy. His favorite things to do are play with cars and play video games. The Parent has set all her kids up in a gender typing way. Her daughter did cheerleading and gymnastics, her oldest son was in football and soccer. Its probably only a matter of time, before the subject is put into some kind of boy sport. When it comes to the Subjects peer relationships, he doesnt have many outside of his family, neighbors and church members. His relationship with his family members is good. He gets along with everyone, even though he doesnt get to see his brother much anymore and he only sees his dad and sister on the weekends. He just moved recently so he hasnt seen his neighbors much and due to the separation of the parents, his mother has switched churches. So lately, hes been feeling a little isolated. However, hes made a new friend. The mothers new boyfriends granddaughter is the Subjects age and theyve been hanging out a lot lately.

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That concludes all the information I gathered in this observation study on my subject. The only recommendations I have are to work on his fine motor skills. The Subject should practice writing more and going over the correct way to hold a pencil. If I had to do this over, I would try and pick even more enjoyable and entertaining activities for the Subject and have a better motivator for them to complete all the activities. This assignment helped me further my professional knowledge by giving me a chance to test a subject and learn how to really focus in on a student as an individual. It also helps by letting me be creative in finding ways to test the subject. I think these things are components of this project that will be useful in the teaching profession.

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References Destefanis, J. & Firchow, N. (n.d). Developmental milestones: Ages 3 through 5. Retrieved from http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/health/724-developmental-milestones-ages -3-through-5.gs?page=2 Mayo Clinic Staff. (2010) Child Development Chart: Preschool Milestones. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/child-development/MY00136 Music Memory Turtle. (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/turtle/ turtleView.htm Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Educational Psychology (Seventh ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. The seven Piagetian Conservation Tasks. (n.d) Retrieved from http://www.cog.brown.edu/ courses/cg63/conservation.html