Toddler Observation Paper

18-24 months | Understands and responds properly to some words and simple commands. May match similar objects. Distinguishes between 'you' and 'me'. | Vocabulary increases each month. Asks simple questions. Points to pictures in a book. | Can walk backwards. Grasp, hold and throw a ball. May begin to run. | Identifies primary caregiver. Imitates movements and facial expressions. Develops a sense of security. | Not applicable |

During my observation at the preschool here at Harper, I looked around and realized a lot of similarities and differences it has; compared to other daycare and preschool centers. The age of children in the room I observed was ages 3-5 with one lead teacher, and depending on the ratio of how many kids showed up on that day, about three or four helping teachers. The program was set up to a very open, happy and overwhelming setting. Every furniture and object in the room had a sign saying what it was, and then underneath the typed out word was the children’s way of writing what the object was. For example, a book shelf was in the corner of the room; on the book shelf was the word printed out “Book

* Despite scoring at the level of a one-year-old upon her initial assessment, Genie quickly began adding new words to her vocabulary. She started by learning single words and eventually began putting two words together much the way young children do. Curtiss began to feel that Genie would be fully capable of acquiring language.

|9 |Can sit independently and will be finding ways to be |Baby realises that when something or someone |Will understand no, bye-bye and other key words,|Can find partially hidden object/toys and will |

At the age of a year to 17 month children start to get interested in looking through books for a small amount of time. They begin to follow simple directions and answer simple questions with gestures. Children this age recognise familiar objects ,people

Olivia has always seemed to be ahead in her language abilities, such as in vocabulary and in advanced thinking skills of creating sentences and understandings of what someone is asking. At three years old, Olivia scored above average in her skills of language comprehension and production. She could tell a detailed story about a picture, in which we thought we could continue to help her develop by reading aloud at home, talking about

As you work with 3-year-old Effie, you keep track of all the new words she uses. You find that, on average, Effie uses two or three new words every week over a period of several months. Based on this information, Effie’s language development:

|Physical |At 24months children can now run safely avoiding obstacles and are very mobile, this has developed from the unsteady first tentative steps taken at around 12 months. | |

The date of my observation was April 27th, 2010. It was about 9:30 in the morning when I began my study. I went to Grossmont College’s Child Development Center. The first thing I began looking for was if the child-teacher ratio was correct. The child ratio was 2 teachers to about every 8 children. The ratio was good. As I entered there was one large room that almost looked as if it could be two rooms they way it was set up. One half consisted of a large bookshelf with numerous books on it with a couch in the front of it. The other half of the room was almost like a little kitchen. It had a table with chairs around it with a sink and cabinets behind it. There were “age appropriate” toys as well as books all over the

Jackson appeared withdrawn, and was somewhat embarrassed before stating that he did not do well in school. Jackson knows that he can perform better in school. When the other children began to tease Jackson, he was ready to fight some of them. This is typical behavior for Jackson, and is also a pattern of disorganized attachment. Children with a disorganized pattern in infancy tend to show disturbed patterns of relationships, subsequently, their relationships with peers can often be characterized by a “fight or flight” pattern of alternate aggression and withdrawal. Jackson’s coping skills when upset, threatened, or embarrassed is fight, unless the person is physically bigger than him. If this is the case, Jackson uses flight to cope, and seeks his grandmother for protection and comfort.

After observing a nine month old child for this Child Observation paper, the author of this paper has taken copious notes during the session. The purpose of this paper is recognizing the biological, cognitive and psychosocial development of the child. The author of this paper identified the background history of the child, the observation made and the development process of the child.

In the Tiffany case study titled, She Just Stopped Talking, Tiffany’s parents describe how their daughter’s normal language development halted after an ear infection. Tiffany’s communicative behavior was on par with what is considered normal language development. However, months after her first birthday, Tiffany began to show signs of an ear infection that developed into what is known as Otitis Media with effusion. This infection heavily impacted Tiffany’s language development, causing much distress to her and her parents before finally receiving successful treatment.

Not long after being admitted to the hospital, Genie seemed to recognize only her name and the word “sorry.” She scored as low as normal one-year-olds on maturity and preschool attainment scales. According to Piaget, there are six substages contained with the Sensorimotor stage of development. It seems as if Genie may have passed up substages three through six of the Sensorimotor stage. Throughout her first seven months of instruction, she identified hundreds of new words and began to speak. Eventually, Genie began using two-word phrases, much like most eighteen-month-olds do. Then, in turn, she progressed to using three-word phrases. She had a referential style of language learning since most of the words she used were ones that referred to objects. Furthermore, Genie never asked questions and didn’t comprehend a great deal of grammar. She never had a speech “explosion” like most children after reaching the two-word stage. Her language was in no way fully-developed.

Then, cooing appears when the child is between six to eight weeks old, where the infant demonstrates happy vowel like sounds (Hoff, 2006). At age sixteen weeks infants begin to demonstrate laughter and vocal play (Hoff, 2006). Between six and nine month old babies begin to produce babbling sounds, then they utter their first word around age one (Hoff, 2006). When children speak their first word it is usually as an isolated unit (Goldin-Meadow, 2006), and not considered a major step in phonological development (Hoff, 2006). Children then learn that their first spoken word is composed of smaller parts, which is known as morphology, and that the word can be used as a building block for larger sentences called syntax (Goldin-Meadow, 2006). A child’s first word goes farther then communicating a message between the child and communicative partner, the word retains symbolic meaning (Goldin-Meadow, 2006). At age eighteen months phonological processes develop, in which the child’s speech characteristics begin to transform (Hoff, 2006). Subsequent to eighteen months the child’s vocabulary grows and with this growth the child is able to phonemically represent a sound with the mental representation of every word that possesses a sound (Hoff, 2006).

Hope was explaining to her mother how her grandmother was going to take her to a “watch car.” She actually meant that her grandmother was taking her to a car show so she can see vintage cars. Faith was upset with her cousin because he took a car from her so she called a “hot dog face.” The girls had used an