A Case Study on Child Development CHDODEV DLSU 2014

2. BACKGROUND OF THE
CHILD
Matteo is a 6 years old Grade 1 student at John Dewey School for
Children. He is very playful and sociable child. Colossal squid is his
favorite animal and oftentimes he will suddenly claw his fingers and
imitate its hands movements. But dinosaurs and scary things are what he
draws most of the time. Scary things for him are anything with spikes. In
his drawing book, there is a house with spikes, a man wearing shoes with
spikes and any possible thing that can be drawn with spikes.

3. BACKGROUND OF THE
CHILD
The teachers have not yet determined in what particular field Matteo
excels because he still needs help in his academic performance. He is
having a difficult time doing his schoolworks by himself. Therefore,
every day after class, he stays at school for his tutoring session
because if he does not, his homeworks will still be homeworks the
next day. It has also been said that Matteo is used to always getting
what he wants and whenever things do not go his way he tends to
throw tantrums and act very cranky.

4. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Motor skills are very essential for him right now. These test his reactions to
his surroundings or even to a certain stimuli. His physical abilities and
capacities widen as he continue to grow and learn new things thoroughly. He
uses his main bodily movements in performing gross motor skills-- jumping,
running, dancing, balancing, skipping and turning. On the other hand, he uses
his small bodily movements in performing fine motor skills such as writing,
drawing and tying shoe laces. Children must have adequate opportunities
and be interested in developing these skills to become more competent.

5. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Matteo sometimes shows hyperactivity in his actions, he jumps and runs from one place to
another and shows no sign of stopping or slowing down. His energy level is stable and always full,
enabling him to perform those motor skills and do multiple tasks at the same time. Mateo also
loves to draw and he is surprisingly good at it.
Matteo’s health is also a factor in his physical development. He may have some respiratory
ailments, cough, cold or stomachaches due to his not yet fully developed lungs. But because JDSC
has a healthy food policy, the healthy foods that are fed to the children lessen the chances for them
to get sick. Physical development is an important factor for children like Matteo because their
conditions and actions rely on it.

6. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
The teacher gave the children an activity on their workbooks to do, this is also
known as a schema or cognitive frameworks or concepts that help people organize
and interpret information. After observing Matteo during this activity, we decided to
assist him to help him get into the follow of the lesson. At first, egocentrism was
quite obvious in the child for he was grumpy and insisted on doing things his own
way. After his teacher noted his mistakes, he was asked to do the activity again and
that’s when he decided to take in our help. We guided him through his work using
the scaffolding method.

7. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Matteo showed the preoperational stage perfectly. Doing things his own way at first showed that
he could not completely manipulate information and was unable to take in the point of view of
others. On the other hand, his egocentrism did show the cognitive skill of reasoning, which was
proof of his cognitive development. He also showed the cognitive skill of problem – solving when
he then decided that take in our help, knowing his situation. Lastly, not just Matteo but the entire
class showed that memory was present in their cognitive development when they actually
remembered some of our names as we entered their classroom during the second school visit.

8. EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Matteo is a playful and happy person. He is always jumping around or playing with his classmates.
He is very talkative as well. Once a person starts talking to him, he will eventually be the only one
doing the talking. Despite his parents being separated, they were still able to show him positive
emotional skills that contributed in shaping his emotional development. Children who learn
positive emotional skills from their parents seem to have more success making friends. Children of
emotionally expressive mothers tend to receive high regard from their peers (Cassidy, Parke,
Butkovsky, & Braungart, 1992). Matteo seems to be friendly with his classmates and seems to share
a good relationship with them.

9. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Social development of a child refers on how he reacts and responds on his environment.
This is the start of child's relationship development, which includes building of friendship
or socialization in the community. Matteo is a very sociable child. He is cheerful and
approachable so his classmates are always playing with him. When talking to him, it
seems like he always has a lot to say that eventually he will be the only one doing the
talking. As his teacher said, he is really good at manipulating people. He gets them
distracted when they talk to him so he can avoid doing something he does not want to do.
Reiner seems to be his closest friend. Although Reiner has some special needs, this did not
stop Matteo from befriending him. Every time they are seated beside each other, which is
most of the time, they always have something to talk to and laugh about.

10. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Matteo seems to be close with some of his classmates. They are often playing with
each other and it is surprising to know that even if they are just kids they already
have concern for each other.When Matteo only kept on eating his rice, his friend told
him to also eat the vegetables and meat because his body needs it.

11. CONCLUSION
Matteo has developed properly in terms of physical development and social development. His
body is able to withstand his physical activities like playing, jumping and running around. He
also has a good interpersonal relationship with his classmates and teachers although
sometimes he can be really persistent in doing what he wants. Despite the situation of his
parents, it is wonderful to see that he is still a jolly kid outside and that he is trying not to let
the separation affect his social life.
Matteo had successfully made it through Erik Erikson’s industry vs. inferiority. The
acknowledgement and encouragement he got because of his drawings helped him through this
stage. He felt sense of accomplishment upon knowing that he has something to prove to people.
Matteo was able to develop competence as he successfully passes this stage.

12. CONCLUSION
However, despite the positive approaches on these two aspects, he still needs to be further
developed cognitively and emotionally. In Matteo’s case, he is having a hard time with school. It
is normal but still needs development. It takes time for children to adapt to school activities by
themselves. Children around his age usually have tutors who assist and guide them in doing the
schoolworks. Also, Matteo has been showing signs that he is still egocentric.
As for Matteo’s emotional development, he is still affected by his parents’ separation which is
the reason why he still gets emotional upon talking about it. Children who are victims of
broken families are often affected seriously only during the ffirst year but once the child starts
to understand the situation, he eventually starts to adapt to it and soon the topic will not be
something to avoid any longer.

13. RECOMMENDATIONS
For future case studies, a few more visits would be greatly appreciated for it
will give students more knowledge and information on the children they will
be observing. This will also give them more time to gather more
information, which may in fact produce better and more interesting case
studies. Scheduled meetings/ a scheduled meeting with the subject’s
(child’s) parents/parent would also be a great tool in producing better case
studies.

14. RECOMMENDATIONS
Overall, we would recommend this school, the John Dewey School for
Children, for future case studies for it on its own is still a developing school.
On behalf of our classmates, we would like to say thank you, Ms. Razo, for
giving us the opportunity to visit, use, and learn from the amazing children
of John Dewey School for Children for our case study.

15. MATTEO
6 YEARS OLD

16. MATTEO
drawing on his drawing book

17. MATTEO
(in red)
during Arts class

18. MATTEO
answering his seatwork

19. MATTEO
with his mother

20. MATTEO’s
self-made family tree for Filipino
class

21. MATTEO
being playful while taking a picture with us and
his classmates

22. MATTEO
with the group members