Observation Paper #1

Name: Malachi Dearden

Class/section: FHS 1500-501-Su7
Assignment: Observation 1

Background Information
Childs age: Toddler: 18 Months to 2 Years
Fictitious name: James (The child is given a fictitious name for privacy purposes)
Location: Online Daycare Video
Brief Video of a toddler and his interaction with the toys, children and caregivers
Description: at a childcare facility.

Biological Development

When I started to observe James, I discerned a few aspects about his biological
development. James favored playing with the toys, especially with the vehicle by spinning the
wheels with his hands. This shows that James is displaying no issues with his fine motor skills as
the textbook describes as Small body movements. (Berger, 2016, p. 102). As the text book
continues Towards the end of the first year and second, finger skills improve as babies improve
the pincer movement (Using thumb and forefinger to pick up tiny objects) and self-feeding.
(Berger, 2016, p. 102). He showed quite the affection for the red ball, sticking the ball in his
mouth and rolling it around his hands as he walked around.
James walked quite good around the play area but had a few stumbles trying to maintain
his balance. Walking around the area and stumbling a few times shows that he is still developing
his gross motor skills. Gross motor being the usage of larger groups of muscles and body parts
for a desired effect. James walked over and stood by the colored water area to play with the
various toys in the tub before climbing the play toy in the sand pit. Walking and climbing
upstairs with relative ease as I have learned that gross motor skills are all about large body
movements. (Berger, 2016, p. 100).
James seems to be approximately two years of age which means he will be half his adult
size and his brain will be three-fourths of their adult size (Berger, 2016, p. 93). James is quite
healthy as he is alert and learning at an expected rate for his age with the same for his
development in his body. He would watch other children and respond to instructions showing he
was not malnourished. His generally health and development is quite good and healthy for his
age.

Cognitive Development

The language James exhibits a rapid growth in how many words he is learning, he is
babbling a bit during some interactions with kids but he didnt seem to talk much to the other
children. The point is that he says mostly nouns in what he says as babbling instead of connected
sentences. Babbling is stating nouns with emotional intent since they dont really have the ability
to express larger concepts as words. (Berger, 2016, p. 121-122). This means that they have to
rely on looking at the item and pointing at the item to help point what they are talking about to
help get the adults attention.
 All six stages of Sensorimotor Intelligence when he was told not to put the items in the
water tub into his moth which meant he knew he would get into trouble if he tried to do it again
but he would wait until the caregiver was distracted then try to stick the objects into his mouth
showing that he would be using the sixth stage of the Sensorimotor Intelligence. This is a
showing that he is very mentally active with his abilities and his growing intelligence, he tried to
replicate various things the other children were doing to try and learn what they were doing
through the acts of following suit.
James was very active when going around and walking with other children as he would
talk and play with them. This shows he is becoming more socially active with the other children
and playing with them, he enjoys this play as he can freely express himself as a person through
self-awareness.

Psychosocial Development

James seemed quite happy and willing to be there in a comfortable sense; he freely
socialized with the other children and with the caregivers as he interreacted. He seems to attend
this facility frequently enough that he was comfortable to be around them. If he wasnt this
comfortable then he would have shown signs of anxiety or fear of the strangers that were around.
With how freely he moved around he had not social anxiety. (Berger, 2016, p. 119),
James showed no outward signs that he understood he was being filmed, he would
occasionally look up at the person that was filming him but he would never really show
acknowledgement towards it so that means he was pretty independent only ever interreacting
with the caregivers a few times but only to watch them for a few moments before going back to
his own thing. The caregivers that did interact with him he would play with them like for
example the ball but when they would leave he didnt require their presence to be happy or to
play which displays his classic secure attachment though those that sometimes show anxiety
when they feel insecure.
A larger number of infants are being cared for by institutions instead of their parents.
Only 20 percent of infants in the United States being cared for by their mothers (Berger, 2016, p.
155), From this we can learn that from how this children interreact with the various other
children around that we can see how they might develop in later stages of their life. This has
proven to be a boon in child psychology and development. We can learn more and more about
how to further benefit these childs early years so they might be able to grow up more normally
and show off their potential to the world.

Reference List

Berger, K. S. (2016). Invitation to the life span (3rd ed.) [with Salt Lake Community College
supplement]. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.