Running head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFRENCES PROFILE

Individual Differences Profile Essay

Corless, Dylan
Instructor: Dr. Egbert
Education 205: Developmental Differences 10:00

Running head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFRENCES PROFILE

Individual Differences Profile Essay

Every individual has the right to learn. There are many different ways to gain
knowledge. For students with disabilities, there are fewer avenues to take to learn.
Disabled students often need to be approached in a certain kind of way because their

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mind works on a different level than the norm, what is expected from average rate

students. A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. students must be approached in a way that will gain their
attention and keep it for an extended period of time. In this profile of a student that
struggled with A.D.H.D. all throughout his schooling career, I will discuss what made
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school such a difficulty and the strategies he used to help him focus while in the
classroom.
General Information
Will is a nineteen years old and has always had to deal with A.D.H.D. (Attention
Deficit Hyper-Active Disorder)j since he was a young child. While he was in school, he
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had a very difficult time concentrating for long periods of time. That has carried on into
his adult life. Will still has a difficult time focusing and staying on task, but he has
learned how to make himself fo~e

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has formed a regular routine since graduating

from high school. Every morning he wakes up and goes to his job at Acadia Music where
he teaches people how to play the drums five days a week from 8 am to 4:30 pm. Once he
gets there, his manager gives him a list of chores for him to do around the shop. Once he
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has completed everything, he waits for his students to show up for their lesso5until
then, he focuses all of his energy on playing the drums and perfecting his craft. Playing

Running head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFRENCES PROFILE

the drums has always been a good way for Will to focus. While in school, Will was very
involved with the school's music programs where he learned how to play multiple
different instrum~

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other classes, such as math, english, and science, it was very

hard for him to focus. He often caught himself losing focus and drifting off in class. As
Will got older, he was able to notice when he would get off task and be able to get
himself to focus again. Once he got out of school, his A.D .H.D. did not seem to affect
him so badly.
Physical Development

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Will's physical description is as follows: he has strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes,
and has white freckled skin. He also has poor vision and is required to wear eye glasses
Will's general physical condition is fairly goo~11ing

up he was involved in

tri-city basketball and pee-wee football. Through middle school and high school, Will
was a standout runner for the cross-country and the track teams and his large muscle
development ft~~ay

they are formed) has always been normal for the age the he was

at. His small muscle development has also been consistent with everybody else's growing
up. Although he struggled to write in an organized fashion, he was able to write fluently
and did not struggle with writing so that he could understand himself. Will has always
been an avid (h~or

showing a keen interest in or enthusiasm for something) video

gamer, playing many games that require very good hand-eye coordination and has always
had fair keyboard skills.
Cognitive Development

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFRENCES PROFILE

Throughout school, Will had a very hard time focusing on just one thing at a time.
He was always placed in regular classrooms with the rest of his classmates and was never
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placed in any special classes. He took every class that any other student would take:

~ math, science, english, physical education classes, and band. In his main core classes, he

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had a very difficult time staying on task and would have

! force himself

to pay attention.

C\f'He would always start out paying attention and his attention would drift to something else
~ due to his A.D.H.D: he would look out the window and he would see a bird and wonder

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what it was that made them fly. His eyes would drift and he would see the bolts holding

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the windows in place and start to wonder how they hold the windows in place, leading to
him wondering how they get windows into a building like that. Due to his disabililJ' (a
limitation) he struggled when it carne to his grades. Will struggled with how to act around
people while in public. He has always struggled behaviorally. Once Will began playing
the drums, his co~nitive (his thinking) abilities became slightly better. Drumming has
been very good to him because it gave him something to focus all of his energy on .
. ive develo ment, (four stages of
cognitive dev~t:
operational~i!(

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sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal

was stuck in the Concrete Operational sta~e of develtp~ro~

time he was seven years old until he was 14 years old. When he went into high school, he
then began showing signs that he was in the Formal Operational stage of development,
where intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract
concepts.

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Socio-emotional Development

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The student has always been able to interact with his peers just as any other
student would be able to. When it came to interacting with adults, he had a very difficult
time talking with them as an adolei.t

(child). Just as any other student, he had a

difficult time with those that he was not familiar with. Many people that did not know
Will on a personal level often harassed him and picked on him. It lowered his self-esteem
(confidence in his own abilities) and gave him a poor self-concept, or the way he sees
himself.Once he made it to the end of his sophomore year in high school, people stopped
picking on Will because he began acting more his age. After people seised (stopped)
picking on him, it gave him a chance to let his self-esteem grow and allow him to gain a
good self-concept, Although he got the chance to improve his self-esteem, Will still
struggles with his own self image and with his confidence to this day.

In How the Brai~ns,

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development, (understanding ofmorality~According

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Kohlberg's stagesof moral

to Kohlberg, Will was in the

Conventional Sta~e (the second of Kohlberg's stages where they. frame their mor

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behavior) of morality for the majority of his schooling life~ill

operated in a very similar

way that a grade schooler would when he was in his young teen years. He had a very
difficult time discriminating between what was acceptable and what was not acceptable.
Summary, Conclusions and Implication
The summary of my findings of this data collection is that Will has become a very
well adjusted adult. For the most part, he has overcome most of the obstacles that have
come along with his A.D.H.D. It has given him a feel for what he can do to keep his

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attention on something for as long as he needs to understand what it is that he is expected

to do.
In conclusion, while he was at a lower level of cognitive and moral d~

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he has been able to take initiative and become a ~er:._~d
made it possible for him to find an outlet for the~y

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musician. His disability has

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that makes it nearly impossible to

focus. Drumming has become a very important part of his life and has even shown to be a
possible career option for him. He has proven that he is is now c~able of making gOO./d~
moral decisions and knows the difference between right and wrong.

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Will has always been gifted musically. He excels in music and playing the drums
has always been his passion. There are many different approaches that could have been
taken to help him throughout school. If Will had begun playing the drums as an early
child, it is very possible that having that outlet would have impacted his academic life

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and shown to improve his grades at a younger age. During school, the teachers could ~'.

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have tried to figure out what it was that intrigued Will in order to gain his attention ../
. Another strategy that COul'J1i"~ been helpful would have been having better
co~

~her

to student or from teacher to parent. Teachers could have

also used better time management in order to keep him as well as many others on track,
as in changing the focus in class every twenty minutes or so.6~
Every child deserves to have a chance at an education. All students have their
challenges with their schooling, some have bigger challenges than others. A child with
A.D.H.D. can have the mental capability to learn, but it takes a special approach to be
able to get through to them in order for them to learn. If teachers accommodate to those

.)

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students with learning disabilities and do what they can to help them, the students grades
and social life would reflect the effort given by the teachers.

Running Head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES PROFILE

Reference{
Sousa, D. A. (2011). How the Brain Learns (Fourth Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.