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CHILD CASE STUDY REPORT

Nancy Villasenor Benita Hunter Child Development 201 April 20, 2014

Child Case Study Report

Child Development 201 requires students to complete a child case study report on one preschool aged child. The student must complete a 30 hour observation of the child at the preschool center the child attends. I chose to complete my child case study report at Richard Daley College's Child Development Laboratory Schools. I observed a boy, age 3, named Josue. Josue has a medium complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. He is about the same height as the 4 year old children in his class, so he is a little tall for his age. Also, I only heard Josue speak in Spanish to others. I believe he does not understand the English language yet. He usually comes to class dressed in active wear which allows him to play comfortably. He enjoys the computer and Lego area the most out of all the other areas. Also, Josue's favorite time of the day is recess since he enjoys going outside to the playground or the gym. Josue knows his way around the classroom and usually only sticks to certain areas during the day. If he plays with other children it is always children that speak Spanish. He is able to go to the bathroom on his own as well but during my first day of observation I believe he had an accident since the teacher kept telling him to change his slacks various times. He can also brush his teeth on his own. During breakfast and lunch he serves himself and eats with a spoon. He rarely finishes his food and he hardly takes seconds. After eating he always cleans up after himself with only once during my observation being told to twice to clean up after himself. He can pick out his jacket but does have trouble zipping it up, and most of the time he is helped by an adult. During clean up time, I never observed Josue cleaning up the toys he would play with, but he would put puzzles back in to their place when done. At the end of the day when his mother picks him up he is usually happy to see her. I decided to observe Jose for my child case study report because I wanted to see how he progressed in each developmental domain as time went by.

At first when I started observing Josue, I noticed a child that enjoyed playing on his own and did not mind his own company. There were times that he would play and observe other children playing but he would still keep to himself. At times, when children are in free play he will play with one other child. He rarely joins circle time with the other children, but he does stop and take notice of what they are doing during this time. His favorite areas are the Lego, puzzles, and computer area. By playing in these areas I was aware that Josue had no problem with his large or fine motor skills. I observed Josue picking, stacking, sorting, and rolling items without any problems. I also observed that Josue's cognitive development is on track. Josue might not speak English but he has no problem communicating in the Spanish language. He has full sentence communication with the teachers in the classroom as well as with other children. He also understands when being spoken to in Spanish to complete a task or activity. For example, Josue enjoys helping the teachers by taking the lunch cart out of the classroom. The two areas of development that Josue needs to make progress in are social/emotion and language development. Josue's social skills are not at the same level as other children in his class. His classmates interact and communicate with each other and have a better understanding of what is going on. Josue is usually on his own playing in one of his favorite areas. There are times where he might stop and look at what other children are doing. Josue is in Parten's stage of parallel play which is when the child plays separately from others but is not a far distance from them and might be imitating their play techniques. An example can be when a child is too shy to play with other children and decides to play close to them and mimic what they are doing. As my observation continued, I did notice that Josue approached other children more often and enjoyed playing with them in an organized way. Josue began moving to Partens third stage which is cooperative play, this is when a child is interested in what other children are playing; the children are playing in an organized and cooperative way. For example, Josue began joining other children by the computer

and was interested in what they were doing. By April 21st, Josue was playing with other children during free play and he is becoming more approachable as well. Josues emotional development is also an area that he struggles with on a day to day basis. As I mentioned Josue is a boy that likes to keep to himself. During my first hours of observation I noticed that if another child disrupted him during his activity he would become angry. Josues anger would lead him to hit the other child and hence start a confrontation between the two children. During the latter hours of my observation Josue began to play with one or more child and most of the time they would be polite and friendly. There were times during their play that if the other child took his toy, Josue would begin to cry and hit the other child which would also start a confrontation. Also, Josue seems to fight with one child in particular more than any other child. This other child also struggles with his social/emotional development and in my opinion this is why they both clash on so many occasions. Both children seem to be in a better mood if they stay out of each others way but are also seated next to each other during breakfast and lunch. During these times I have not observed any confrontations between the two of them. Usually when Josue is not behaving he is told he will not participate in recess. Recess time is something that Josue obviously as evidenced, enjoys since he whines and behaves when he is told this. He is sent to the rug and asked to be seated quietly until his name is called to line up and most of the time he does as he is told. I suggest that Josues emotional development will progress as he gets older. Since he is 3 years old and most children in the classroom are 4 he is a little behind. Josue will learn how to deal and express his feelings and emotion in a less passive aggressive way. Josue is also facing challenges with his language development in my opinion. I am taking into consideration that he does not master the English language. Josue's first and only language is Spanish and that is how he communicates at all times. He has no issues communicating with the teachers since two out of the three speak Spanish. Josue also communicates with his classmates in

Spanish but there are some children in his classroom that speak only English. Josue rarely forms part of sing-a-longs and story times in English. Through my observations I believe that Josue would benefit from joining in on these types of activities because they will allow him to enhance his vocabulary. Josue's cognitive development progress will help him to learn and speak the English language at a faster pace. There are many other aspects of Josue's development I was not able to observe. During my observation, Josue never wrote, drew or colored. During his day, Josue would pass the time on the computer, Lego area, or the puzzle area. These areas allowed me to conclude that Josue is great at completing activities that incorporate problem solving. The lack of not observing Josue do paper and pencil activities did not help me to gather sufficient data as to where he falls under this area of development. I would like to add that such activities were never offered in the classroom during the time span of my observations. In my opinion, if more activities were included during the day that allowed children to write or draw, I would have been able to learn more about Josue's writing and drawing abilities. I was able to capture one of his works which was a cut out butterfly that he colored in. He chose the colors blue and brown and scribbled in the middle of the butterfly not filling it in completely. This was the only child's work I was able to gather, which did not help me in discussing this aspect of his development. After completing my 30 hours of observation I am positive that Josue will grasp all areas of development and succeed. He is a very intelligent boy that once he feels comfortable with his surroundings is not shy to stand out from the crowd. He enjoys activities that are loud and fun and this will allow him to enhance his social skills. He enjoys picking up books and flipping through the pages. On April 23rd, he picked up a book and sat down with an African American girl, and they both flipped through the book in a polite and quite manner. I noted on my journal that she was an African American girl because Josue always plays with Spanish speaking children. During my

30 hours of observation, I had not once seen him interacting with someone that did not speak Spanish. Observing him flipping through the book with his classmate led me to conclude that Josue is being more diverse and less timid. Josue is also joining in or more circle time activities that include sing-a-longs and dances. On April 21st, Josue was part of circle time and danced for most of the activity before he ran off to a different area. During playground time some of the children were gathering up bugs and he was helping other children look for bugs around the playground. Overall, when I began observing Josue I saw many areas of development that he was struggling with. During the time that has passed I have observed progress and development in most of those areas. He has progressed tremendously in his social skills as he is gaining confidence when socializing with the other children. Josue has begun coming out of his comfort zone as he know plays in groups. Josue is also joining circle time at least once per day. Josue is also gaining progress in coping with his emotions. He is not whining or misbehaving as much as he was at the beginning of my observation. He has fewer confrontations with other classmates during the day and he finds other outlets to take his anger out. I have observed him many times just walking away from the child he is fighting with and go up to the book are and pick up a book. In language development I have observed him progress as well. Josue is constantly trying to speak English words to his classmates. He is also listening to sing-a-longs and lip synching some of the lyrics he can capture. In due time Josue will be speaking English every day, and this will allow him to improve the other areas of development he is struggling with. As Josue gets older he will be able to form part of more class activities and grasp the educational part in each activity. Completing this observation has allowed me to see how children learn and progress in so little time. Observing Josues class as a whole has helped me grasp how children of different ages cope with being in the classroom and away from their parents. I chose Josue because he stood out

from the rest of the children. He was playing in the corner of the room by himself and was bothered and interrupted by a group of little girls. Josue did not like that one bit and ran to tell a teacher that they had taken over his area. He has made so much progress since that first day my observation started. I end this observation feeling like I know him personally since I spent so many hours observing him through a glass window. On the day I went to the directors office to get her signature Josue was coming out of the classroom on his way to recess. I turned around to look at him and he waved and smiled at me like he knew me. This small gesture made me feel really happy, I felt like we bonded even if he was not aware of it. I saw him leave down the hallway with his classmates and I realized it might be the last time I see him. I sincerely hope Josue continues to succeed in every area of development. Also, I hope he continues to have the support he needs to achieve these goals from his teachers and parents. Josue has allowed me to learn more about the observation process and child development.

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