Running head: CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 1

Child Study Observation

Madison Weimer

Ivy Tech Community College

CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 2

General Background Information

At the time of my observations the subject was seven years old in second grade. The

subject has a half-brother who is twelve years old. The subject lives with his half-brother,

mother, and father. The mother and father of the subject are not married and are in their late

thirties and early fifties. The father of the half-brother is in and out of the picture. The family

identifies as blended. There are no pets in the home with the subject.

The pregnancy of the subject was unplanned. The mother carried the subject for forty

weeks with no complications in pregnancy or labor. She gave birth naturally with labor lasting

approximately three hours. The mother returned to work the following week after giving birth.

She took care of the subject at work. The subjects development within the first year progressed

normally. The subject was talking at twelve months. Once the subject began talking, by the age

of eighteen months he was talking in full simple sentences and walking. At the age of seven

months the subject began attending a local daycare for approximately four years. He was tested

at the age of four for early entry into kindergarten due the cutoff date coming before his birthday.

The subject currently is enrolled in a program for gifted students at his school called

REACH.

On a week day the subject goes to sleep the previous night around the nine o'clock hour.

The subjects parents rarely struggle in the process of putting him to bed. Even so a couple nights

a week the subject will try to convince one of the parents to snuggle in bed with him for a few

minutes. The mother typically says no trying to create independence in the subject. The father

tends to give in and spends ten to fifteen minutes with the child in him and his brothers room.
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 3

On a school day morning the subject wakes up at the latest at 6:30 am. The subject does enjoy

sleeping and would sleep over eight hours a night give the opportunity. Before boarding the bus

with his brother at 7:45 a.m. the subject eats breakfast, gets dressed, and brushes his teeth. The

subjects least favorite part of his routine is brushing his teeth. The subjects parents were not

aware of the specifics of the subjects school schedule. The subject returns home from school by

riding the bus.

A routine is in place for when the subject is home off of the bus. He is supposed to call

his parents, have a snack, and to do his homework. His parents have two security cameras in

place to keep an eye on the two brothers during the time between their arrival home and their

parents arrival home. The feed from the cameras is lived streamed onto their computers at work

and onto their phones. The two brothers have a tendency to fight and argue. The cameras were

put into place to help extinguish the fights by giving the parents a third eye insight. The subject

will on occasion nap after he completes his homework, typically on Monday evenings. In his free

time after his homework when he is not napping he currently enjoys playing video games and

Pokmon.

The subject has a tendency to become bored easily with playing the same game or with

the same toys. His preferences of what he plays with or who he plays with changes on a constant

basis. The subject plays well alone but also has times when he requests his brother or one of his

parents plays with him. He tends to attach onto stuffed animals. He goes through phases with

each stuffed animal, usually attaching to the newest addition to his collection. The subject has to

know where, whichever stuffed animal his current attachment is linked to, is before he goes to

sleep at night. Aside from video games and Pokmon toys, the subject participates in Cub Scouts.

He does not play any sports yet due to his parents thinking he is too young to play yet.
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 4

The subject has no medical conditions. He does not take any prescribed medication but

he does take two vitamins in the morning after breakfast. He was observed on two different

occasions. One observation was at his home in Indianapolis, Indiana. The second observation

took place at a local fitness center where I had the subject demonstrate his motor skills. The

subjects mother and father were interviewed together before the first observation at their home.

Physical and Motor Development

The subject weighs eighty pounds with a height of fifty four inches. According to

reference.medscape.com the subject falls into the 99.7th percentile for height and the 99.04th

percentile for height. The subjects height and weight are most likely due to the mothers genes.

She is also in the high percentile for her height and says she always has been. The subject is right

handed. The subjects motor development appears to be exactly on track according to

http://www.webmd.com/children/tc/milestones-for-7-year-olds-topic-overview. This website

states a seven year old should be able to swim, climb, use scissors, write their name, and draw a

person with 12 parts. The subject can swim for extensive amounts of time, tread water, float on

his back, and swim backwards. I observed the subject at the fitness center his family works out

at. The subject was more than eager to show off his ability to swim. At a young age, the subject

was exposed to water as his parents have owned a boat since he was born. During my

observation that took place at the subjects home, I asked if he could cut a shape out of a piece of
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 5

eight and a half inches by eleven inches paper. The subject could successfully cut a square and a

rectangle out of the paper although he did use the straight edges. He used the edges so he only

had to make two cuts for each of the shapes. Above is a picture of the subjects family he drew. I

labeled the members by the first initial of the name the subject calls them. M stands for mom. D

stands for dad. C stands for the subjects brother name. The B stands for the subjects name. The

people appear to have most body parts. The people are missing hands and feet. The subject is the

pre-symbolism phase in his art development. Craig Roland states in Young in Art the pre-

symbolism stage includes missing parts of the body and symbolism includes dimensions and use

of baselines (2006). The subjects people are missing hands and feet. The people are also floating

on the page instead of sitting at a table, on a bench, or standing on the baseline which is the

bottom of the piece of paper. Roland explains children between ages four and six should be in the

pre-symbolism stage, however not to worry if a child is older and still falls into that phase

(2006). The subject falling behind in this category makes sense due to the fact he spends little

amounts of time drawing. The subject considers drawing and coloring to be a girls activity

which results in the misconception he should not be partaking in this activity. The subjects

thoughts on gender roles will be further discussed in a later section. The only ability I did not

witness the subject be able to perform was being able to climb.

Cognitive Development

The subject completed six of the seven conservation tasks. The tasks he completed

referenced numbers, length, liquid, mass, area, and volume. The only conservation task the

subject did not properly understand was the task involving length. I presented the subject with

two equally long sticks placed on the table parallel to and lined up with each other. I asked the

subject, Is each of these sticks as long as the other? The subject responded with yes. The
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 6

subject watched me move the sticks to a position where they were still parallel but were not in

line with each other. The sticks overlapped though, one stick stuck out more to the subjects right

and the other stuck out more to the subjects left. I asked the subject, Now are the two sticks

each equally as long or is one of them longer? The subject responded with, No, this (pointing

to the one sticking out towards his right) one is longer than the other. According to

http://www.cog.brown.edu/courses/cg63/conservation.html by the age of five or six children

begin to able to understand and properly answer the number conservation tasks and by the age of

nine or ten the children have mastered the tasks through to volume. The subject appears to be

slightly advanced in the concrete operational stage. Although he did not understand the length

conservation task, he could properly assess and reason every conservation task after length

including liquid, mass, area, weight, and volume. The subject had a long attention span. I was

able to engage with him for the upwards of an hour while administering the conservation tasks.

The hour did include conversation but all of our conversation was relative to the task in front of

the subject. The subjects advanced cognitive abilities I believe can be accredited to the daycare

he attended before starting kindergarten at his local public school. The daycare was teaching the

subject as much as the subject wanted to learn. He had a drive to learn at a young age which

results in the daycare challenging him with different activities.

Social/Emotional Development

The subject was presented with one of the Kohlberg dilemmas found at

http://ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.dilemmas.html. The dilemma the

subject heard was, Joe is a fourteen-year-old boy who wanted to go to camp very much. His

father promised him he could go if he saved up the money for it himself. So Joe worked hard at

his paper route and saved up the forty dollars it cost to go to camp, and a little more besides. But
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 7

just before camp was going to start, his father changed his mind. Some of his friends decided to

go on a special fishing trip, and Joe's father was short of the money it would cost. So he told Joe

to give him the money he had saved from the paper route. Joe didn't want to give up going to

camp, so he thinks of refusing to give his father the money, (ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/

ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.dilemmas.html). I had the subject read the story aloud to me. After he

read the story once, I proceeded to read the story again aloud. I asked the subject various

questions about the story. The subject exhibited egocentrism when looking through the lens of

Joe, the child. The subject answered a question by saying Joe should not give the money to his

father because he wants to go to camp and camp is important to him. The subject was thinking

from Joes perspective but also thinking about what he would want to do, what would benefit

him. In the subjects answer he seemed to understand the concept of authority quiet well. He

spoke about how the father had authority over the child because he is older than him. The subject

defined authority as being older and being wiser. The subject reiterated multiple times that he

thought money is not crucial to a successful, positive relationship between the son and the father.

He said, Money isnt your life. When prompted with questions about promises, the subject

understood the concept of promises along with the fact they should not be broken. He stated

when promises are broken people get sad. After the subject said this I asked him what a promise

meant and what he defines as a promise. The subject was unable to answer. He understands the

stigma around promises but not the trust aspect and the explicit definition of the word.

Inferring from my observation of the subjects answers to the questions about the

dilemma and the subjects behavior when I witnessed him swim, I believe the subject is in the

industry versus inferiority stage of Eriksons theory. Dr. Christopher L. Heffner states this stage

includes feeling confidence and pride in oneself and ones work (2017). When asked to do
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 8

different things in the pool, the subject scoffed and expressed his confidence in himself aloud. In

the time I observed the subject showed me many different activities he had done at school and

how they could relate to activities I had him complete. There was no doubt pride by the subject

in his work. The subject answered the question, pertaining to the Kohlberg dilemma, Is the fact

that Joe earned the money himself important in this situation?

(ww3.haverford.edu/psychology /ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.dilemmas.html). The response was yes

due to the fact Joe earned the money by himself. However the subject later went on to realize Joe

could give the money to his father. The subject realized this when he was asked to put himself in

Joes shoes. He had placed himself in that situation by retelling the story with his own name. He

would give his money away since he knows he can remake the money by continuing to run his

paper route. The subject showed confidence in himself to follow through with the job to save

even more money. The subject could not make this connection of returning to work while having

a flat character in the story. I believe he could not make this connection because he did not

understand whether or not the character would be able to complete more paper routes. The

subject was unsure of the characters abilities but very sure of his own.

Socially the only observation I made about the subject was the connotation he has

between genders. The subject distinguishes everything by whether it is a boy or a girl thing, toy,

action, etc. The subject has never had an altercation with another child at school pertaining to

gender. Although as he ages if this connotation persists and even evolves I could see the subject

having trouble socially.

Your Reactions, Recommendations, and Application

Analyzing a specific child gave me a more concrete view on how certain theories and

thought processes actually look in children. I feel confident now in my ability to assess future
CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 9

students simply by observing them in the classroom while they work independently by

themselves or in groups. The specific subject I observed for this assignment overall seems to me

as advanced in almost all areas. I would encourage the parents to challenge him, physically and

mentally. A child whose abilities are advanced can become bored easily. I think the best way to

keep his development growing is to place him into sports, clubs, summer camps, etc. which

interest him. The parents could take advantage of his tech savviness in terms of video games

through educational applications or games sold online and in stores. With the subjects drive to

learn, I think these years are crucial to his development. Before his education metaphorically

beats the excitement of learning out of him, I think he needs to do as much learning as he

possibly can through reading, games, and engaging with children or adults older than him. To

encourage his development, his parents could stimulate him with questions or ensure he spends

weekend or summer time on educational activities. The result of this would create a connection

in the subjects mind between free time, enjoyment, and learning. I am glad to have completed

this assignment. I learned how to identify stages in development and found many resources to

use later in my professional life.

CHILD STUDY OBSERVATION 10

References

Haverford College. (n.d.). Kohlberg dilemmas. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from http://

ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.dilemmas.html

HealthWise. (2015). Milestones for 7-Year-Olds - Topic Overview. Retrieved March 01, 2017,

from http://www.webmd.com/children/tc/milestones-for-7-year-olds-topic-

overview

Heffner, C. L. (2017). Chapter 3: Section 3: Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development.

Retrieved March 01, 2017, from

https://allpsych.com/psychology101/social_development/

MedCalc 3000. (2011). CDC Height for Age Percentiles for Boys (2 - 20 years). Retrieved

March 01, 2017, from http://reference.medscape.com/calculator/height-age-

percentile- boys

MedCalc 3000. (2011). CDC Weight for Age Percentiles for Boys (2-20 years). Retrieved March

01, 2017, from http://reference.medscape.com/calculator/weight-age-percentile-boys

Morgan, J. (n.d.). Piagetian Conservation Tasks. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from http://

www.cog.brown.edu/courses/cg63/conservation.html

Roland, C. (2006). Young in Art: a developmental look at child art. Retrieved March 1, 2017,

from http://www.artjunction.org/young_in_art.pdf