PEPSI SCREENING

PEPSI Screening

Stephanie Castillo

Edu 220 Educational Psychology

April 17, 2018

Dr. Ce Isbell

College of Southern Nevada

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Abstract:

PEPSI is an acronym for Physical, Emotional, Philosophical, Social and Intellectual. In

this screening, I will apply the content learned from our textbook, Principles of Educational

Psychology. I will be observing a child in each of these developmental areas and taking notes.

Also, I will use my textbook and other sources to support my findings .The child I will be doing

this screening on is my brother, Erik. He is 18 years and is a senior at Canyon Springs High

School. In this case study. I will be evaluating Erik in all 5 of these developmental areas. I will

then determine whether or not he is on track.

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Biography

Erik Castillo was born on October 25th, 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was raised by

two Mexican immigrants. Growing up, he spoke mainly Spanish at home, and learned how to

speak English at school and by his older siblings. He has always been extremely interested in

sports and video games. He is a social butterfly and has many friends. He is a person who enjoys

spending quality time with his family and friends. He is passionate about his culture, sports and

his video games. He is now a senior at Canyon Springs High School. He only goes to school for

about 4 hours. He is currently taking English, Government, College Prep (math), and a class on

music appreciation. In his final year of public school, he is extremely eager to finish and

graduate. He has experienced his share of senioritis and has trouble waking up to go to school

every day, as he fights with his mom every morning. He has never been a big fan of school and

does not have any plans to continue his education. After high school, he plans on finding a job

with his dad.

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Physical

According to huffingtonpost.com, “Missing class, not doing homework, getting lower

grades on assignments they would usually ace - all signs of the ever-present ‘senioritis.’” As

teens get older, they tend to become a bit lazy. Erik is a great example for this. In the beginning

of his high school years, Erik was extremely interested in sports, especially soccer. As he became

older, he has become more interested in video games, television, and cellphones. One day while

observing him, he got home from school took off his shoes, changed into shorts and turned on

the television to start playing his video game. He was there from 11am until 8pm, when he

decided to go to sleep. I observed him that whole week, and he did this exact routine, Monday

through Friday. I even asked him if his back or his eyes don’t hurt from playing all those video

games, and he responded with “nope.”

According to nypost.com “Activity levels at the end of adolescence were alarmingly low,

and by age 19, they were comparable to 60-year-olds.” As technology and social media take

over the world, I think it’s a big influence on teens and their inability to be active. Erik is

extremely influence by his video games and I think it is a huge reason on why he is not active

enough. In school, he does not have enough motivation to play sports.

As mentioned before, Erik was a huge soccer player. He would play for the school’s team

and for an outside team. Another time when I was observing him, we happened to be at a

birthday party. He is really interested in dancing and has great rhythm. He danced for a good 3

hours with maybe 5 minute breaks in between. I never thought he was capable of dancing so

much, especially after he has become so sluggish around home. Erik has also become sexually

active with girlfriend. According to our textbook, Psychology Applied to Teaching, “many

adolescents become sexually active, although the long term tend is down.” This is referenced in
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Chapter 3, Section 3.5. Also in this section, it is mentioned how most students in high school

have reached physical maturity and have attained puberty. Erik has definitely reached physical

maturity and has attained puberty. My parents are worried for Erik’s physical health. They

believe is not doing anything resourceful or any type of physical activity on his free time other

than playing his video game. We hope that once he graduates this year, he is able to attain a job

and become a more active young adult.

Emotional

Erik is the type of person where he would rather block out his emotions, until he cracks.

His current girlfriend had been going through some tough times and Erik wasn’t fully aware of

them. Once she told him, he came home and started bursting out crying to me. That’s the first

time that he has ever done anything like that with me. I have never seen him cry for a person as

much as he did about her. I wanted to know what his feelings were and how we can fix them.

Another time that I observed him, he was having an argument with my mom. While they

were arguing he tends to block things out and ignores her. “Okay mom okay, can you stop

talking already?” Typical teenager. But, he then made my mom feel bad and he later went to

apologize for his actions. According to Newportacademy.org, “when teens feel intense emotions,

they sometimes try to push those feelings away.”

When my cousin passed away a month ago, I also observed Erik, especially to see if he

will hide his feelings or showcase them. Erik was extremely affected by the passing of my cousin

and was not afraid to show his feelings. I have never seen him cry like that. He didn’t know how

to deal with the situation, since it was so out of nowhere. He was extremely upset and was very

depressed for a couple of days. According to aacap.org, about 5 percent of children and
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adolescents in the general population suffer from depression at any given point in time. The good

thing is that his depression only lasted a few days. With the help of his family and his girlfriend,

he was able to cope with the death. After observing Erik, I feel like he tends to block out his

feelings when he knows they are not necessary or he doesn’t want to be picked on for it. I think

that he tries to make us think like he has no emotion but in reality he has a lot of it.

Philosophical

According to lifestyle.howlifeworks.com, “By middle adolescence (around 14-18 years

old), teens have begun to develop their own moral code,” Out of the 6 stages of moral

development made by Kohlberg, I believe Erik is in stage 6. In our textbook, Psychology

Applied to Teaching, it explains the 6th stage as the universal ethical principle orientation, which

is moral decisions should be based on consistent applications of self-chosen ethical principal.

Although Erik is still a teen, I believe he is very mature. He thinks about his decision making

thoroughly. Erik is a respectful teenager at times. There are many instances where I have

observed him being very disrespectful to my mom or to me and my older brother. Yes, this is

common in many teens.

Over these past times of observing him, I do think he has calmed down from how he

was. He was a social butterfly and rebelled a lot before entering his last year of high school.

Although he is disrespectful to some of us sometimes, he never argues or disrespects my dad. My

dad is a very chill and light person, but we know not to upset him. Erik knows not to push his

buttons or be disrespectful to him. According to Mentalhelp.net, “By late adolescence, most

teens are less rebellious as they begun to establish their own identity, their own belief system,

and their own place in the world.” This is something that Erik is definitely going through as he is

becoming a young adult.

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In outside settings, Erik is extremely polite to people. When we were in Denver this past

month, I observed how he was being nice and polite to an older cashier who was slower at her

job. He was really calm and didn’t lose patience. I asked him why he was so patient with her and

he said “Don’t you remember what they taught us in school, treat people how you want to be

treated.” I was really shocked when I heard him say that and I thought “wow he’s growing up.”

He applied something he learned as a small child and applied it to his life now as a teen.

According to livestrong.com, “children over the age of 10 or 11 begins to consider

judgements based on intentions, rather than end results.” So, basically they see whether or not

you made your decision on a bad or good decision, and don’t focus on what he outcome will be.

Erik, I believe, is on track for his philosophical development.

Social

According to healthychildren.org, “Adolescence has the effect of a stone dropped in

water, as there social circle ripples outward to include friendships with members of the same sex,

the opposite sex, different social and ethnic groups, and other adults,” As mentioned before, Erik

is a social butterfly. Over the years, I have met so many different friends of his. He does have 3

best friends that he’s had for over 5 years. As a teen, being socially accepted is something very

important. I don’t think Erik has ever felt the urge to “fit in” or “impress” anybody. In our

textbook, Psychology Applied to Teaching, page 103 states “Boys, in contrast, often stress skills

and interests when they form friendships.” It has always been really easy for him to talk to

people, especially in school. He has good communication skills and this has helped him thrive

with his friends. According to Mentalhelp.net, “Adolescents will begin to form many different
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types of relationships, and many of their relationships will become more deeply involved and

more emotionally intimate.”

These past few months, however, he has stopped going out with his friends and hanging

out. I think that it has to be due to his girlfriend. They have been dating for a while and she has

recently moved in due to some problems at her home. Ever since she moved in, however, I

believe Erik has stopped hanging out with his peers. His girlfriend is a jealous type and I think

since she’s moved in, he has less freedom to be social with his friends. This does not stop him

though. On his video game, he interacts with different “parties” of his friends and he gets to talk

to all of them through a head set. I can see that he gets upset when his girlfriend does not let him

spend time with his friends. Hopefully, he’ll go back to hanging out with his friend’s everyday

like he used to instead of being at home and talking to them through a headset. Erik is a very

social person and has never had any trouble with making friends at school or outside of school.

Intellectual

According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, found in our text book,

Psychology Applied to Teaching, Erik is in the Formal Operational Stage. In this stage, it is

focused more toward middle school students, high school students, and beyond. According to

this stage they “generalize and engage in mental trial and error and they think up hypotheses and

test them in their heads.” Even though Erik has not always loved school, he has always been a

smart student. According to healthychilrent.org, “By late adolescence, many youngsters have

come to appreciate subtleties of situations and ideas, and to project into the future” Erik , now as

a senior in high school, is now using his prior learned information and seeing how he can apply it

into his future career.

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According to teens.lovetoknow.com, “during late adolescence, the complex thinking

skills which have been developed are now used to focus on more global thoughts. The teen

becomes less self-centered and more mature, looking at what his role is in the community. A teen

now must figure out what kind of adult he will be and how he will fit into the adult world.”

Throughout his high school years, he has taken honor classes in his English, Math and Social

Studies classes. In his last year of high school, I have observed that Erik has been experiencing

senioritis. He is becoming lazy with his work and is having trouble not paying attention during

his lectures. He has been slacking on his class work and has many missing assignments.

Erik has needed helped with math recently. He always comes to me for help and I try to

effectively explain how certain questions are done. I honestly think that Erik has trouble in

school because he is just too lazy. I know for a fact that he can process information correctly and

later apply it, but his laziness interferes with that. After giving one or two examples, he tends to

grasp the information very quickly and understands how to do the problem. I know that he is able

to learn efficiently, but he is just too lazy to pay attention and do his work.
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Recommendations:

My recommendations for Erik is to value his final weeks of public school, before all the

reality hits. I recommend him to take into consideration his parents and his education and to find

motivation to get up and go to school every day. Since he is a senior, he is extremely eager to

graduate. So, I recommend him to take time to live his final weeks in high school in peace and to

really take time to learn from his educators. As a future educator, I recommend his parents to

motivate Erik to consider having a college education. Physically, I recommend Erik to try to

become more active and not just stay home all day and play video games. I recommend him to

find extracurricular activities or a part time job. Emotionally, I recommend Erik to not be afraid

to vent his feelings with his family members. As mentioned before, Erik has the tendency to

block out his emotions or not show them to his family members. I would say that he needs to

build up trust with his close family members and air out his feelings.

I believe Erik has good morals. We grew up in a household where we had the same

morals and we have all turned out fine. Socially, I’d recommend Erik to not be afraid to go out

with his friends even though his girlfriend might not let him. As mentioned throughout the case

study, Erik is a social butterfly. So, depriving him from his friends can cause him to become

depressed or sad. I recommend him to go out and spend quality time with his friends, family and

girlfriend. Intellectually, I would recommend Erik to take his learning more serious. Erik is a

very intellectual and smart person. As a senior in high school, he just feels the need to finish and

get out. I would recommend him to seriously value the importance of education and to consider

furthering his education career. Even taking a two year technical course can help him become an

even more intellectual individual.

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References:

Physical:

 Gollayan, C. (2017, June 16). Lazy teens are just sitting around, sluggish as 60-

year-olds. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2017/06/16/lazy-teens-are-just-

sitting-around-sluggish-as-60-year-olds/

 Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching.

Australia: Cengage Learning.

 Cohen, K. (2017, January 22). The Truth About Senioritis. Retrieved from

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kat-cohen/truth-about-

senioritis_b_9040680.html

Emotional:

 Monroe, J. (2018, February 07). Teen Emotions: Riding the Wave. Retrieved

from https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/teen-emotions-

riding-wave/

 Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching.

Australia: Cengage Learning.

A. (2013, July). Depression in Children and Teens. Retrieved April 24, 2018,

from

https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-

Guide/The-Depressed-Child-004.aspx
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Philosophical:

 Ireland, K. (2017, June 13). About Moral Development in Adolescents. Retrieved

from https://www.livestrong.com/article/55792-moral-development-adolescents/

 Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching.

Australia: Cengage Learning.
 Contributors, H. (2011, April 04). What is the moral development stage of
adolescence? Retrieved from
https://lifestyle.howstuffworks.com/family/parenting/tweens-teens/moral-
development-stage-adolescence.htm

Social:

 Adolescent Social Development. (2010, November 10). Retrieved from

https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/adolescent-social-development/

 Stages of Adolescence. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/teen/Pages/Stages-of-

Adolescence.aspx

 Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching.

Australia: Cengage Learning

Intellectual:

 RN, T. F. (n.d.). Cognitive Development in Adolescence. Retrieved from

http://teens.lovetoknow.com/Cognitive_Development_in_Adolescence

 Stages of Adolescence. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/teen/Pages/Stages-of-
Adolescence.aspx
 Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching.
Australia: Cengage Learning
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Erik’s Development