Early Childhood

Abstract

I observed a 5 years old child named Dylan at one of my friend's daughter birthday. The child is a male. Dylan is of Spanish descent and was born here as I heard from his parents. He is a bit chubby and big in size. He was a very playful young boy throughout the entire party. According to his age, he is healthy physically and mentally. Dylan's is 42 inch tall, weighs about 46 pounds. As I mentioned, he is a bit big in size and is above average in weight compare ed to other kids around him. Dylan's height is similar to other kids and, according to the weight and height chart, Dylan's height is average but his weight is not average (BabyCenter, 2018).

Gross Motor Skills refers to muscle movement of the body such as controlling our head, arms, legs and torso. These muscle movements are used while running, jumping, balancing and etc. These skills begins to develop first from the birth and slowly moves toward complex movement as the kid grows. For example, holding fingers, trying to lift head up, crawling etc.(cite your source). As for my observation, Dylan shows his gross motor development by running after his friends, eating food by lifting his arms up, turning his head back looking for his friends . All the actions tell me that he has developed gross motor skills properly coming to this age.

Every action Dylan performed were age appropriate because he developed what he was capable of and was acting just like other normal 5 years old child. From my observation, dylan's body movements from running, playing with balloons, turning back and walking all comes in a category of gross motor skills. So, Dylan has fully developed his motor skills. Further ado, Dylan has developed fine motor skill as well as I observed him closely.

Fine motor skills mainly focuses on the movement of specific muscle such as our fingers, toes, and eyes, and on the coordination of those small complex actions. In here, children would be able to improve the ability to control and manipulate an object. For example, slowly picking up on how to write alphabets using fingers, catching a ball, picking up small object from the floor, and having a hand eye coordination. (Cite source). Based on my brief description, Dylan shows that he has developed fine motor skill because he could hold his spoon, tie his lace, play games on phone and grab balloon perfectly. He also ran after his friend knowing where to run after and this means that his eyes muscles are functioning great to looks everywhere constantly. Based on my observation, his action according to his age were appropriate, he did not performed above his age nor below his age. His actions and movements were developed just right. Dylan's ability to perform smaller actions such as holding spoon, using his fingers by playing games on phone shows that he corresponds to his muscles and his fine motor skills.

Sensory/Perceptual Development means a child uses his/her sense to get a better understanding of the world. These senses includes hearing, vision, taste, smell, and touch. The sensory perception will help the child in detecting stimuli, recognizing and characterizing it. In order for the child to learn, they uses all these senses and progress better throughout the years(cite your source). I observed that Dylan was listening to his mom when she told him not to scream, he even hears music as I saw him dancing for it. This means that he could hear and process what others are interacting or telling him.

I noticed that he was constantly playing games on phone which means that he can see what he was doing. As for taste, he was eating the cotton candy and cake at the birthday and I observed that he was really enjoying it. I did get a chance to observe if he had the sense of smell. Lastly he can feel the sense of touch because I saw him turn back when someone touched him behind. Based on the observation, Dylan has shown the development of sensory/perceptual. Dylan's ability to feel all the five senses connects to all the activities observed ahead conforms his sensory development. While observing dylan, his behavior was stable and to determine his sensory I observed several times on his senses.
Temperament refers to the characteristic and arrays of personality that we are born with. It cannot be changed as we are born with it, It can be shaped or moduled.

Temperament is biologically based on heredity and hormonal factors. According to Thomas and Chess's temperament types, there are three categories where childs fall into. There are easy going child who adjust easily to new situations, are joyful and easy to calm, there are difficult child who takes time to adjust to new surrounding or situation, very hard to calm them and keep them under control and lastly, the slow- to-warm-up child who is a bit hard at the beginning but as time goes, its gets easier to handle them(cite your source). Based on Thomas and Chess's temperament types, Dylan falls under the Easy going child because I saw him obeying his mother, listens well when she said not to scream once, he was a sweet boy as I didn't observe him being dramatic or overreacting. I also observed that he was interacting well with other kids, everytime nodding to yes.

Sigmund Freud's psychosexual stage of development means that there is five stages to it which are Oral, Anal, Phallic, latent and genital. He believed that in each of the stages pleasure is focused in a specific part of the body. Too much or too less in any one of these stages caused a fixation which would lead to certain disorders. He also believed that each stages serves a purpose in forming oneself personality. According to Dylan's age, he is in Latency stage. Here in this stage Dylan is to develop a healthy sexual feelings for the opposite sex(cite your source). I observed that Dylan was intelligent and knew his gender very well because I saw him play with boys only but I didn't observe him having any attraction towards the opposite sex in the setting at that particular moment. How is the person. I didn't seem to see any conflict in this stage.
Cognitive development is a construction of thought processing, problem solving, decision making and remembering. One of the important theory on cognitive development is Piaget's cognitive stage theory.

He believed that the children's intellectual skills change over the period of growth and that children at different age looks at the world differently. Therefore, Piaget formed this four stage of cognitive development. These four stages include sensorimotor stage where child see the world through their senses, preoperational stage where children learn to speak, have the mental ability to think of an image and see from another's point of view, Concrete operational stage where children can think logically and are able to identify what is real or not, and lastly formal operational stage where adolescent can abstractly think, give reason on abstract concepts and understand a wide arrays of topic (cite your source).

According to Piaget, Dylan is in Preoperational stage because I observed that he spoke his language fluently which means he can process what to thinks and speak out his mind. He even spoke his mother tongue spanish with his parents and this shows that Dylan was capable of understanding two languages and was able to process it. I wasn't able to observe whether he could see other's perspective at that moment.
Vygotsky also had his own view on cognitive development. He believed that we learn from our guidance and through interacting with advanced peers. cite our source). Based on my observation, I can tell that Dylan got guided on how to be respectful towards elders as I saw him not misbehaving. I also observed that he was told by an adult to make line in order for him to get food at the birthday party. And with that guidance, he processed it in his mind and made line to get his food. Dylan learned it through getting more knowledge from others as he would tell his friends the same as well.

Language Development refers to ability to communicate, talk their thoughts, understand and express feelings. There are five parts of language development which includes syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics. Syntax is the order of words to form a sentences. Morphology is the study that tells us meaning by using one word. Phonology is the sound heard that comes from a language. Semantics is the meaning of words and sentences in a language. Pragmatics is the system where logic takes place, reasoning and communicating with society abstractly. (cite your source).

Based on the age of Dylan, I observed that he was able to hear and understand sentence and use correct sentence structure when he spoke. I can say this because one of the girl asked if he wanted to play with her, he replied back telling her to wait for a bit because he wanted to finish the cake. He didn't make any grammatical error while speaking. Dylan's language development is within the normal pace because I noticed that Kids at this age should know how to speak correctly and he was able to put the words together and speak fluently. This means that he has developed syntax speech at his age.

Social Development means children begins to interact with others around them. They begin to have a sense of who they are and where they belong to. They start to gain skills to communicate and enjoy themselves being with others. Under this social development comes Erikson's stage of Psychosocial development. There are eight stages to it and the first stage is Trust vs. Mistrust where infant is not sure about the world, 2nd stage is Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt where childs seeks to do things by themselves and parents shouldn't pamper them all the time as it might lead to lack of esteem and feel shame and doubt about their abilities, 3rd stage is initiative vs. guilt where children interact with other children and ask many questions and if not enough importance is given to the child, he or she will begin to feel guilty, the 4th stage is industry vs. inferiority where children mature and understand logical reasoning. The self awareness increases and becomes a competitive.

The 5th stage is identity vs role confusion where adolescence develop their sexual identity, some may be confused. The 6th stage is intimacy vs isolation where young adults worry about finding the right partner or spend alone whole life. The 7th stage is Generativity vs stagnation where adults try to do something meaningful or they become a complete failure in the society. Lastly, the 8th stage is ego vs despair where old adults feel good about the way they lived or feel like they have not achieved anything in life, experiencing despair.(cite) Based on Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, Dylan is in third stage initiative vs guilt because I observed him interacting with other kids and he behaves well while socializing. I am not sure if I observed a sense of guilt in him.

Moral development refers to right or wrong actions. Kohlberg wanted to further develop his ideas on Piaget's theory of moral. He wanted to find out how people decide what is right or wrong. Kohlberg's six stages of moral development is put into three levels of moral reasons. His three moral levels were preconventional morality, conventional morality and postconventional morality. In each level lies two stages. In preconventional morality, childs act of doing right or wrong is controlled by parents or teachers. Children accepts the rules that was created for them.

In conventional morality, children will abide by the rules to stay out of trouble and have to society functioning. In postconventional morality, a person tend to realize that some laws and rules are not fair and will break it to find justice and reasons. (cite) . Based on a moral reasoning, Dylan is living by his parents rules, he cannot do certain things like screaming or else he would be punished at home. I observed that he listened and kept quiet once he got his warning. Also the fact that Dylan was there at the party whole night staying beside his parents tells me that Dylan know where he belongs and what type of rules he has to live with.

Emotional development refers expressing, empathy for others and understanding feelings. Basic emotions are happiness, fear, anger, surprise, sadness, and disgust. They are daily expressed emotion due to certain moments. (cite your source). I observed that Dylan was very happy the entire birthday. He couldn't stop eating and played all night long with the kids. He was smiling and interacting in a high tone. His basic emotion for that night was happiness as he expressed his feeling of enjoyment and playful with a smile and laugh. Complex emotion includes grief, jealousy, regret, guilty and pride. These complex emotion develops slowly as kids grow up. Dylan has not shown any complex emotion at the party while I was observing. (cite your)

Anxieties means a strong concern and worry about certain things. The separation and stranger anxiety is a feeling of being taken away from someone close such as your parents. There isn't any sign of the separation and stranger anxiety with Dylan. He is perfectly communicating with other strangers at the party without any anxiety.

Attachment is the close bond between the caregivers and the child. Attachment affects in a way of feeling safe and secure which is really important in developing personality. Mary Ainsworth performed an test called The Strange Situation Technique in order to investigate how attachment might be different. According to the test, the children shows Ainsworth's four different attachment styles.

Conclusion

They are secure attachment style where the child feel secure when the caregiver is present along with a stranger but may feel sad when the caregiver leaves, ambivalent attachment style where the child clings more often on caregivers and when the caregiver leaves, the child gets extremely upset, Avoidant attachment style is when the child avoid the mother showing very little emotions when she leaves or comes, and lastly disorganized attachment style where the child is very inconsistent of emotion such as crying during the separation but when the mother returns, the child avoids.( cite)Based on the Ainsworth's attachment style, Dylan's age is not appropriate for these four attachment styles but I did observe that he was solely attached to his mother as he was constantly going back to her at the party and interacting with her. He feels safe around that surrounding because his mother is present there.

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