Assignment

4 YEARS OLD---Katherine wants to help you repaint some rooms in the house. As a compromise you let her paint with watercolors on an easel.

Katherine and Isabella are reasonably well-behaved in fast-food restaurants, but you know you have to stay clear of regular restaurants, as their noise would disturb some of the other patrons. However, you make a game of restaurant behavior training Katherine by showing her how to sit with a napkin in her lap, order from the waiter (you pretend play for this part) and pass various items around the table.

You and your partner occasionally find some time (maybe once a month) to get out and away from the kids. Even when you are out together, you and he often end up talking about the kids or worrying how the babysitter is handling things at home. You are fascinated by the way Katherine plays with a new skill almost every chance she gets. For example, this has been happening with counting. Katherine has figured out that the numbers twenty, thirty, etc. can be combined with the numbers 1 to 9, and off she goes, counting happily up to 80 and more. Katherine counts so many different things during the course of a day that it has nearly driven you crazy! It's almost like an obsession, except that you can see how beneficial it is. Katherine has begun to beg you for a puppy or a kitty. You aren't ready for one yet, but temporarily try to satisfy the urge by taking Katherine to the petting zoo or to play with pets at the homes of your relatives and friends. Katherine will turn 5 this summer and will be a bit on the young side in the fall when she starts kindergarten. The school where Katherine will attend kindergarten has started a kindergarten prep session over the summer that lasts for a couple of weeks and involves group as well as individual work on letters, numbers, etc. You enroll Katherine at the age of 4 years, 10 months. She is assessed by one of the kindergarten teachers, who observes her during free play and tests Katherine one-on-one. Then the teacher sits down with you and your partner and gives the following report:

She could read a few short words and write her name and could name most of the letters on sight at the time of testing. She also showed an age-appropriate understanding of phonological awareness (e.g., deciding whether two words started with the same sound, picking out the two words that rhymed from a list of three words). The teacher recommended continuing to enjoy reading and writing activities - Katherine was well-prepared for literacy activities in kindergarten.

Katherine showed advanced ability to count, use numbers, understand quantitative relationships and classify objects, showing that she was more than ready for kindergarten to begin.

She performed in the average range on tests of vocabulary e.g., naming a picture and providing an antonym or synonym for a word), and the ability to retell a story. The teacher thought you should engage in more reading aloud, and encourage Katherine to tell stories, perhaps so that you could write them down and read them back to her.

Katherine was fairly interested in the little art projects the teachers had the students do, and seemed to enjoy the pre-math activities involving working with blocks and geometric shapes.

The teacher thought Katherine was doing well with the peer group. She made several little friends in the kindergarten prep session.

The teacher reports that your scores on the parenting questionnaire put you in the top 15% in terms of affection and warmth displayed toward your child.The parenting questionnaire scores put you slightly above average in terms of discipline and control exercised with your child.

The teacher noted that Katherine had no difficulty adapting to the "practice" kindergarten activities the children were asked to do. Katherine was generally cooperative, avoided getting distracted, and stayed on task. Katherine did not get upset when mild stress occurred (such as an instruction to hurry up). The teacher recommended that Katherine be given more and more responsibility for self management and care at home and at the preschool in preparation for kindergarten.

5 YEARS OLD----Katherine's first official day of school was exciting and a bit stressful. When you arrived at the playground bustling with children, Katherine went out slowly, and after you spoke a bit with another parent, you noticed she was talking and laughing with another girl. When you picked Katherine up, she seemed a bit tired. All afternoon and evening you didn't get many answers to your questions about how the day went. Katherine mainly wanted to hang out with you and watch TV. The best thing you heard all day came at bedtime, as Katherine murmured, "My teacher's nice." FIVE YEARS AND 11 MONTHS

You all have a good time at Katherine's birthday party with other soon-to-be first graders. The kids enjoy traditional birthday games, such as pin the tail on the donkey, a scavenger hunt, and a treasure hunt with a map that you made up, and clue notes in various places around the house.

6 YEARS

There are a variety of approaches to the study of individual differences in cognitive ability. Three areas that are commonly assessed by current cognitive abilities tests are verbal ability, spatial ability, and logical and mathematical reasoning ability.

Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences approach added several additional core domains of intelligence based on developmental and neuropsychological evidence, such as musical ability and intrapersonal (or emotional) intelligence. Other approaches to intelligence view intellectual abilities as a hierarchy, with general intelligence, or "g" at the top, and various other abilities, such as verbal and spatial ability, underneath.

In My Virtual Child, five areas of ability are represented, loosely based on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences framework:

verbal ability

spatial ability

logico-mathematical ability

musical ability

bodily-kinesthetic ability

These abilities are influenced by your questionnaire responses, and change slowly in response to parenting choices and random events.

The behavior of your virtual child is consistent with the child's developmental level. For example virtual children who are low in verbal ability go through the language milestones (such as speaking in grammatical sentences) at a slower rate in the first 3 years, have a smaller vocabulary in early childhood, and have lower interest in reading and writing, and lower reading comprehension in middle childhood and adolescence, than is the case for children of average or above average verbal ability.

Your partner has been stressed out from life and family responsibilities and he has been drinking too much. This has created additional stress and affected Katherine's school work and mood. You talk with your partner about ways to ease the stress at work and at home, for the good of Katherine, Isabella, and your relationship.

Katherine's memory is getting better. She can beat you on certain memory games such as Concentration because she remembers where the cards are located. But when she tells people about things that happened to her, she leaves a lot of details out and sometimes gets the order wrong. You join in the retelling of the experience, prompting Katherine with questions, rather than just bursting in and telling it yourself.

Katherine's best friend in the neighborhood has joined a children's choir so Katherine joined too. As you listen to the concerts, you notice that about half of the children are off-key, including your own! You wonder if practicing these songs at home with you accompanying her on the keyboard would help Katherine learn to be on key.

You and your partner sometimes have arguments over daily issues. He has a more volatile temper than you, so sometimes you have to have a cooling off period before he can talk calmly again. You notice that both Katherine and Isabella are aware of these arguments, and seem to be emotionally upset or misbehave for a couple of hours after the argument. Katherine is more sensitive than Isabella. You explain to Katherine that sometimes you and your partner disagree but you still love each other and love Katherine and Isabella.

Katherine really knows the routines now in restaurants and only occasionally gets rambunctious. You hope that Katherine's behavior will help Isabella learn some self-control in restaurants.

Katherine seems to be generally very responsible and helpful, but sometimes she is busy playing when it is time for homework, dinner, bath or bed, and she doesn't want to stop the activity. You have usually given her "5 minutes" to finish up and she has been very cooperative about it. Katherine grows serious one day and says something to the effect that you are about as "nice" to her as other parents are to their kids. She adds that you have about as many "rules" (i.e., you are about the same in strictness) as other kids' parents. You are a little surprised that Katherine is so aware of how other parents behave.

You went to a teacher conference and the teacher went over Katherine's first grade report card. The report card uses developmental categories rather than traditional grades. Some of the results were expected, but some of them surprised you, and you decide Katherine's behavior must differ somewhat at home and school.

Some highlights of the first grade report card were the following ratings:

"Demonstrates strength" in reading and writing.

"Demonstrates strength" in the areas of mathematical problem solving, understanding of data and number concepts.

Consistently works cooperatively in groups, consistently respects rights and possessions of others, and consistently demonstrates appropriate peer social interaction.

"Developmentally appropriate" in the areas of spatial understanding and visual arts.

"Developmentally appropriate" in the areas of speaking and listening and in content knowledge of social studies and science.

Katherine was usually appropriately active during recess and physical games, and appropriately quiet during periods of work in the classroom setting. She did not show an unusual amount of impulsive or distractible behavior.

Consistently works independently, consistently listens attentively and follows directions, and consistently follows classroom rules.

In the comments section the teacher wrote: Katherine occasionally gets upset in stressful situations but usually calms down fairly quickly.

8 YEARS OF AGE----Katherine spends a weekend with the family of a new friend at their home in the mountains. They went sledding and snowboarding. Katherine came home and asked "can we buy a house in the mountains"? You smile at Katherine's ignorance of the family finances and answer, "No, but we can go sledding and snowboarding sometime soon." Katherine has enjoyed soccer and softball over the past two seasons, and wants to continue in both. Your partner is serving as assistant coach on the soccer team and both parents practice with Katherine and alternate taking her to practice and games during the week and on weekends. Katherine seems to be healthier and more resistant to colds this year, perhaps because of the exercise.

Although you and your partner love your children, you and he sometimes find it helps both your sanity at home if you have some down time or alone time. You know some other parents who say the same thing.

Since second grade, Katherine has been able to sound out almost any word, and now only occasionally gets stuck when reading aloud. She enjoys reading and looks forward to taking turns reading the story for the night with you. Katherine is cheating less often at games (or has gotten sneakier about it!), but recently she has been lying about things that happen at school, or blaming messes on her sister. You realize that Katherine is still at the preconventional level of moral development. You tell Katherine stories or fables about people who lied ("The Boy Who Cried Wolf"), and talk about how people feel when other people lie to them. When Katherine does occasionally confess, you praise her for telling the truth. You are looking forward to the upcoming summer and spending more relaxing time with the kids. Both kids are also getting anxious for school to end. You get a call from a long lost friend from college and your friend visits you. You have fun talking about old times, and your friend's two kids have fun playing with your two kids! Psychologist's report at age 8:

Her scores were in the average to above average range in word reading, reading fluency, phonological awareness and spelling.

Katherine's scores on the  math concepts ,  math application  problems, and  math computation  tests were in the gifted range, and the psychologist recommended that she be tested for placement in gifted classes or at least in a higher math class in 6th grade.

She was friendly to the examiner and remained calm and cheerful during the IQ and achievement tests even when some of the questions became difficult and frustrating.

These were some of Katherine's scores on the Verbal portion of the  Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children  (where 7 is one standard deviation below the mean, 10 is the mean and 13 is one standard deviation above the mean): Information (9),  Vocabulary  (10),  Similarities  (10),  Comprehension  (11).

The psychologist gave you and the teacher a questionnaire on behavioral and attentional problems, and reported that Katherine did not have unusual problems with  impulsivity ,  inattentiveness  or  hyperactivity . She was very focused and maintained concentration throughout the IQ and achievement testing.

Katherine's scores on tests of visual-spatial ability ( spatial rotation ,  copying of designs , etc.) were above average.

The psychologist interviews you using a standard set of questions about parenting attitudes. According to your scores, you are above average in warmth and affection toward your child.Your scores on the parenting questionnaire indicate you are about average in discipline and control toward your child.