Running Head: CHILD STUDY INVESTIGATION 1

Child Study Investigation

Timothy J. Henley

Ivy Tech Community College

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General Background Information

The subject of my investigation is a six year old Caucasian male. The subject is currently

a first grader at the Blue Academy in Decatur Township. He is the youngest of three children in

the household, with two older sisters at the ages of eight and twelve years of age. The child lives

with both biological parents in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. The childs mother is a thirty-

eight year old waitress, whom works day shifts and often on weekends, and the childs father is a

forty year old delivery truck driver for a home improvement conglomerate, he works during

week days until mid-afternoon. English is the first and only language spoken in the home and the

child has lived within a one mile radius of the house he was born to his entire life, though the

child has moved three times in the last three years. The childs biological parents are still married

but have discussed getting a divorce over the last month. The arguments (name calling and

verbal/emotionally abusive) and destruction of property (breaking phones, plates, car windows

etc.) has been coming to the forefront more often and sometimes these episodes occur in front of

the children. The childs grandfather on his fathers side is active in his life, but plays a limited

role in raising his grandson. Money, food, and stability have been deteriorating over the last six

months and things still seem to currently be going downhill for the family.

During this initial interview with the childs mother, she indicated she went full term

during her pregnancy and delivered via C-section, the subject weighing eight pounds and eleven

ounces. Other than the fact it was a C-section, there were no other complications at birth other

than a slight milk allergy. The child and mother went home from the hospital on the same day.

The child has had a history of ear infections, allergies and semi frequent nightmares with

bedwetting that has ceased over the last couple of years. The child has been diagnosed with
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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder from a behavioral therapist and is currently taking

Melatonin as a sleeping aid and is taking Quillivant for his AD/HD. There has been no

psychological counselling nor any educational services from a private entity as well as no

initiation of an early intervention program. There is a history of Autism, speech and language

issues and a history of depression and anxiety on his mothers side of the family, and a history of

alcoholism on his fathers side of the family.

The childs early stages of development seems relatively normal. The subject was

crawling, sitting up without help and speaking his first words around 4-6 months. The child was

walking alone by twelve months of age and was walking up stairs and speaking in short phrases

by eighteen months old. The child was speaking in sentences by three years and was fully potty

trained by, including through the night, four years old. During the time of infancy, the mother

describes observations of head banging, colic, and a dissatisfaction from being cuddled.

During the childs toddler through five years of age time period, he generally played by

himself, even when in a group he tends to focus on his own activity rather than contribute to a

unified activity. He was easily distracted when he was in a bad mood, which was somewhat

often, and bad moods could occur when he did not get his own way or was in a stressful

situation. When the child was angry, he was noticeably upset, however when the child was

content or happy, he did not show an equal level of emotion to reflect those feelings. His mood

did not swing without provocation and he was generally predictable when it came to sleeping

and activity levels. The child did have difficulty sitting still during mealtimes, paying attention

when read to and holding a crayon or pencil. He got frustrated while buttoning or zipping

clothing, waiting for his turn to play and often acted without thinking.
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Now the child is six, and over the past year he displays a hard time staying seated and

fidgets often. The boy interrupts often and does not listen, has poor concentration and is

impulsive. He has difficulty initiating/completing tasks and following directions. He argues and

is defiant with adults, lies and blames others for his own mistakes. The child also cries easily, has

temper tantrums, has an increased shyness and is overly anxious. The child also has started

having an unprovoked explosive emotional outburst. It stands to reason that the increase in

negative behaviors is related to the increase of turmoil between his parents as they have become

bitterer towards each other as the cloud of divorce looms over the family.

In the home environment the child frequently has problems in public settings, in the car

and during sit down homework time. He sometimes has problems while getting ready for school,

playing with siblings, when with a babysitter and when told to do something he does not want to

do. The child rarely has issues with eating at the dinner table, playing by himself or when

watching T.V. or playing video games. The child feels closest to the mother and discipline

consists of talking to the child about their actions. Home chores include cleaning up his room

and taking out the trash in which he needs reminders of but does complete regularly. The child

has an eight p.m. bed time and wakes up at seven-fifteen a.m. and generally spends about one to

two hours a day with electronic media.

The child is generally a follower but like to do his own thing most of the time. His

mother describes him as being primarily introverted and shy, but does get along with

neighborhood kids for the most part. He is wishy washy towards school. Some days he loves it

and some days he hates it and lately the child has been at the nurses office claiming to be sick to

try and go home. The child is not motivated to learn and spends about ten minutes a night on

homework. The child receives not specialized educational services.

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Physical and Motor Development

According to disabled-world.com, who sources size and weight averages from The World

Health Organization (WHO), Gerontology Research Center (National Institutes of Health, USA),

and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average six year old boy

weighs approximately forty-five and a half pounds, and has a height of approximately forty-five

and a half inches. The child I surveyed was below both marks, weighing in at forty pounds even

and a height of forty inches tall. This puts him in the sixteenth percentile for weight and the third

percentile for height according to the WHO.

The child is not involved in any competitive sports and as I watched him in free play with

his sibling and friends, he tended to have minimal physical activity. Even during running,

occasional catching (sometimes) and throwing (seventy percent accurate) of balls, shooting each

other with toy guns and flailing his toy swords around, he would not participate as much as the

other kids. The child mainly stood just enough to the side to be witness to the activities, but not

be included so much. When it came to testing, I utilized a hodgepodge of assessments from

various websites that covered gross and fine motor skills. Overall my assessments pointed to the

subject to be either at, or below typical gross motor skills, and at or slightly below most fine

motor skills.

When it comes to gross motor skills, the child successfully stood on one foot for 10

seconds, walked backwards heel to toe, walked along a line, skipped, and rode a bike without

training wheels. He was only moderately successful or not successful at all with catching a tennis
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ball with just his hands, maintaining balance after jumping/landing with both feet, kicking a ball

with accuracy, and moving across monkey bars.

As it pertains to fine motor skills, the child excelled in some areas, showed far more

interest in areas associated with those skills and became more frustrated when he felt like he was

messing up with those skills. The child loved playing and building with Legos, was able to cut

shapes with relatively good accuracy, and drew/colored with his wrist and fingers as opposed to

his whole arm. He did get visibly upset when he would go outside the lines when tracing shapes

or coloring, but he admonished himself with no outside influence and according to his mother, he

has been doing so for quite a while. The child drew things that were recognizable in

environments that were pretty well detailed. It was interesting to see how much he leaned

towards activities of a fine motor, non-physical nature.

Cognitive Development

This was an area I found odd to test. During the physical activities, the subject was

expressive and willing to play without much coercion. During these tests, the child was easily

distracted or completely shut off all together. I started off with the irreversibility tube, I used

colored marbles and a toilet paper roll. I stated clearly the color that went in first (I used red,

white and blue, in that order). When I asked him which color I would pull out first, he correctly

guessed the blue one but then stared blankly at me and refused to answer which one would be

next. I made an attempt to try this set-up again a few minutes later and the subject refused all

together to answer any questions. I moved on to the penny counting test though I used dimes and

bribed the subject that he could keep the dollars worth of dimes if he cooperated. He passed that

test quite easily, I could see him nodding his head and counting them (both times, so I assume he
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didnt just connect the fact they were the same immediately) and he did not fall for the longer

row having more dimes, he just quietly said they both still had five.

I then tried the two balls of playdough, where as I showed him two equal sized balls, he

confirmed he thought they were equal, and then flattened one of them and asked which ball had

more dough. The subject immediately said the flattened ball had less playdough in it. I ran this

test a second time with the same results. Piaget states Understanding of these situations is

'perception bound'. The child is drawn by changes in the appearance of the materials to conclude

that a change has occurred. (McLeod 2015). His perception was the ball was smaller and

therefore less massive. The subject started to get a little restless after the playdough so I tried to

squeeze in one more test before I left for the day.

I wanted to do the liquid conservation test, or in our case and more specifically, the

chocolate milk test. The subject initially determined that once poured into the wider glass that it

had less chocolate milk compared to its previous equal. I poured the chocolate milk back into its

original container and it was like a lightbulb went off and once I repeated the test, the child

concluded they were the same volume without hesitation, and then we proceeded to drink the

milk as a treat for a hard days work of cognitive assessment via Piagets theory of development.

I attempted to assess language development, but felt the tests would be unproductive

since the child barely spoke and when asked to determine the results of the previous tests he

generally pointed to which container had more liquid or which clay mass was smaller. Ormrod

states Without a doubt childrens immediate environments play a significant role in their

language development (Ormrod 2014) Given the fact the child comes from a somewhat hostile

environment, whereas socio-economic struggle are present and verbal confrontations are

experienced, I feel the child has maintained a state of introversion and attempting any language
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assessment would have been an act of futility. Any attempt to make him more verbal was met

with displeasure, so instead of stressing the situation out, I just negated the attempt all together.

What these tests told me is that the subject is right on the border between pre-operational

and concrete operation stages of development. He seemed to know reversibility, though refused

to continue with it, and grasped the liquid test after the first go around. He did falter with the

playdough smash but nailed the coin test. I wish I could have done more with language

cognition but I did not want to push the matter and foil any chance of running other tests.

Social/Emotional Development

According to Eriksons eight stages of psychological development, my subject should be

in the Industry v. Inferiority stage (Psychology Notes 2017). A desire to be recognized by those

around him did not seem to be present within my subject. He kept to himself, did not show his

mom a picture he drew, opting to include it with other items of the sort (homework and

colorings) he had in a pile in his bedroom. This lends me to believe he falls more on the

inferiority side of things. He kept quiet and allowed his sister to push him around a bit until the

point he would just start crying and separate himself just enough to be alone. This occurred only

once under my direct observation but his mother claims he keeps to himself a lot and rarely

stands up for himself and rarely initiates any behavior that would irk his sister. When asked

questions regarding the incident (his older sister kept his sword away from him) he refused to

discuss it, he just sulked for a bit and found an alternate sword to play with, which was a stick.

Gender typing seemed slightly evident by the clothes he wore, dinosaurs and sharks on

two of the occasions, and by the choices he made of on how to play. Generally speaking he was

playing with swords, Legos, and Star Wars figurines. He would however, have no issue with
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playing with his sisters toys and even dress up in her feather boa toy and a faux pearl necklace.

His sister would, other than a few occasions, play peacefully with him, direct his play habits by

telling him what to do or where he ought to go and dictating the pace/longevity of the activity.

The subject was definitely the follower and had little to no influence on group play, and seemed

very content to just do his own thing within the vicinity of his siblings and friends.

Reactions. Recommendations, and Application

My biggest road block with this child was his extreme introverted nature. I am no

psychologist but I believe it was part inherent mentality with a heavy dose of verbal abuse

amongst his parents that has been going on for years but has been getting more frequent in recent

history. From what I have heard from both parents is that the children are witnesses to the

altercations but are never the receivers of direct verbal/emotional abuse. At the writing of this

essay, I have also been notified that the parents have officially decided to divorce, and that things

have actually calmed down a bit in the last week or two for they divide their time in the house as

much as possible to avoid confrontation. I tend to believe some kids are just the loner type, and

naturally are submissive to those around them. So maybe some counseling would due this child

some good but otherwise I feel time away from the turmoil in his home-life will be the best

medicine. Once he has two happily separated parents, I feel he will continue to grow

socially/cognitively/emotionally but still within range of his natural tendencies. Physically he is

smaller than average but will develop with due time just like we all do. I dont think I could have

done much differently with this subject. I truly feel he opened up to me as much as he would and
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many of my observations of him where without the acknowledgement that I was observing him,

just casually playing as he normally would.

I would have to say the biggest thing this task taught me was the value of knowing how

to assess a child without them knowing. I would have gotten far less data had I micro-managed

the activities. Even the Piagetian tests I preformed started to get presented in a more gamely

manner than a direct, test like, study. Some children may respond well to that scenario, but for

the ones who do not, I have exercised the practice of being a sneaky assessor. In the classroom, if

a child is as introverted as my subject is, if he/she just refuses to perform when told too, the

value of a subtle, different approach rather than a forceful tone is immeasurable and, from my

experience, gather more experience for me, as well as benefit my student far better in the long

run. I feel if I had more time to warm my subject up, and more time to tweak my approach with

him, I would have fared better with determining where he lies in any given developmental stage.
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References

Child Growth Calculator (2017) Retrieved from:

http://www.childgrowthcalculator.com/#grafica_longitud

Developmental Experiments (2017) Retrieved from:

www.ghaps.org/portengaa/A.P.../Cognitive%20Development%20Experiments.doc

Disabled World (2017) Average Height to Weight for Babies to Teenagers. Retrieved from:

https://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/height-weight-teens.shtml#mc

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Preoperational stage. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html

Ormrod, J., (2014) Educational Psychology: Developing Learners (8th Ed) Pearson Education,

Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ.

The Psychology Notes HQ (2017) Developmental Psychology: Erik Eriksons Theory of Psycho-

social Development. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/erikerikson/