Assignment

1YEAR AND 7 MONTHS ----Katherine is able to imitate actions or words that she has seen or heard days before. This greatly expands her ability to learn new things. Katherine also seems to be aware of basic categories, such as big or little, and blue or red. You can tell because of the way she is sorting her toys.

The days are long but the years are short. Life continues to move ahead and you marvel at how quickly time passes.

The preschool that you are considering for Katherine offers low-priced developmental assessments. Katherine is able to enroll when she becomes reasonably well potty-trained. She is 19 months old now. Just to find out how Katherine's development compares to other children of her age at this point, you have an assessment done. The early childhood specialist observes Katherine in free play with other kids and does a little testing of cognitive skills. She reports the following:

After she got warmed up, Katherine seemed to get along very well with the other kids, and was unusually cooperative for a child of her age. The examiner thought that Katherine would adapt well to the preschool environment.

Katherine was advanced in her gross motor skills. The examiner recommended that you expose Katherine to a variety of indoor and outdoor activities and let her interests be the guide as to what to pursue.

The specialist noted that Katherine readily engaged with her socially and made good eye contact. She seemed at ease with the examiner throughout the session.

The specialist thought that Katherine was securely attached, but that the communication system between parent and child could be improved. She recommended that both parents try to read Katherine's reactions more carefully and work on interpersonal communication.

The examiner commented that Katherine was able to concentrate very well during all of the informal testing, and if this continues, she would be more than ready for preschool-type activities, which typically require children to stay on task or remain in "group time" for 10-15 minutes. She also recommended getting Katherine to follow simple directions at home, gradually increasing the complexity and length of the directions.

Katherine was age-appropriate on tasks such as building a block tower to model one made by the examiner and other spatial skills such as copying shapes, coloring within the lines and solving picture puzzles.

Katherine scored at about the 18-19 month range for communication skill,  language comprehension  and  language production . This is age-appropriate of course, but the examiner recommended that because Katherine was in such an important period of language development, that you spend as much time as possible talking with Katherine, asking questions that require some kind of extended answer (rather than just "yes" or "no"), and looking at and naming things in picture books, etc.

The examiner observed Katherine become moody and irritable several times during the play session, when things did not go her way. The examiner recommended that you help Katherine regulate her moods gradually by not overreacting to mood changes, and by patiently waiting for him to calm down and communicate his desires.

2 YEARS OLD----Katherine was over at the neighbor's house a couple of weeks ago and was scratched by their cat. Since then, Katherine has not wanted to visit the kindly neighbor, and has been more clingy and whiny than usual.

Katherine has been riding her big-wheeled tricycle a lot lately, but recently has avoided it completely because of a scary accident in which she went off a curb in the park and got scratched up. You don't push Katherine to get back on the tricycle. You figure she will get back on it when she is ready.

Your partner is spending more time with Katherine lately. Money is tight, because you are saving to buy a house, but your partner and Katherine have fun in inexpensive activities like going to the zoo, the petting farm, museums and the park.

You notice that Katherine has some new emotions over the past few months. Some things you have noticed are shy smiles when asked to be in photographs, looking guilty when she breaks something, and embarrassment when she has a potty accident. You realize these new emotions are related to her developing self awareness.

The days are long but the years are short. Life continues to move ahead and you marvel at how quickly time passes.

2 YEARS AND 6 MONTHS

You just found out you are is pregnant! You are holding off on telling Katherine for a while until the pregnancy become more noticeable. But sooner or later you'll have to face the inevitable question of 3-year old inquiring minds: "how did the baby get in there?"

Katherine is toilet trained now, and rarely has any accidents. She is communicating better, but has difficulty understanding other people's perspectives. Katherine knows her gender now, and has begun to categorize behavior and objects as suited to boys or girls. She prefers playing with girls, but gets along pretty well with boys. You figure she is ready for a more structured preschool experience.

Katherine can remember recent experiences and provide simple descriptions of what happens, such as a trip to the petting zoo or the amusement park. You are impressed that her memory is working so well, and you suspect that she has had the ability to remember these experiences for quite some time, but hasn't had the ability to express it until recently.

Katherine is going to be starting a preschool program soon, so you take advantage of the fact that a friend of yours is an early childhood development specialist. You ask her to evaluate Katherine, who is 2 1/2 years old. The specialist evaluates Katherine's language, motor and cognitive skills using some developmental scales, and observes Katherine interacting with other children in a toddler play group. This is her report:

Katherine was generally not very aggressive with the other kids, but would sometimes say "Mine!" if there was a toy both children wanted. However, Katherine would usually smile and give up the toy a few moments later and seek out a different toy. The specialist said that Katherine was ready for preschool already in terms of aggressive behavior.

Katherine was above average on nearly all gross motor skills, such as climbing, throwing and catching a ball, balancing, and skipping and enjoyed these activities quite a bit. The advice was to continue these activities, emphasizing Katherine's interests and focusing on having fun with them.

Katherine handled challenging tasks fairly well except for an occasional need for encouragement.

Katherine was able to focus on the tasks given by the examiner for the entire 40-minute session. The examiner said this was unusually good for the age. She recommended that you ask Katherine to carry out more and more complex daily tasks (such as getting dressed) and read longer stories in preparation for preschool.

She is in the average range in copying shapes with a pencil, working with picture puzzles and constructing things out of blocks. The specialist recommended offering Katherine a range of these activities to choose from and to go with the ones that seemed of most interest to her.

Katherine's scores on measures of language comprehension and production were in the average range, and she was beginning to show more consistent use in conversational speech of grammatical markers such as past tense, plural, etc. The specialist recommended you continue to converse about anything of interest to Katherine, read favorite books to her and go on outings.

Katherine is above average in solving problems with more than two steps, and grouping objects together in categories. The specialist recommended that you respond to Katherine's interests, whether it be building things, learning about animals, going to the children's science museum, etc, and that you encourage Katherine to think about things by asking questions (e.g., at the zoo, you could ask "what is the monkey doing", to get Katherine to focus on and talk about the animal's behavior).

Katherine was somewhat hesitant in the group of children and spent a few minutes watching them before joining in. After a while she latched on to a couple of the other children and had a good time. By the end of the session, they were smiling and imitating each other.

3 years old-----There is evidence that there are three main personality types in childhood and your child's behavior beginning at ages 2-3 years is designed to resemble one of these personality types. The personality types combine some of the temperamental traits with which you are already familiar. The overcontrolled category refers to a child who is cooperative, and follows the rules, but tends to be shy in social situations and is sometimes anxious or clingy under pressure. The undercontrolled category refers to a child who is sometimes uncooperative and can become mildly aggressive, sometimes does not follow the rules, and tends to become distracted and overly emotional, particularly when under stress. The resilient category refers to a child who is usually cooperative and follows the rules, is usually friendly, non-aggressive and outgoing, usually has good regulation of his or her emotions, and usually adapts well to new situations.

You have new neighbors two doors down. Katherine has struck up a friendship with the four-year old girl that lives there. They have fun riding trikes on the sidewalk, playing dolls and dress-up, and other games.

Your family has grown with the addition of a baby girl! Isabella was born last night at 11:30 P.M. Katherine is a little over three years old now, and has been eagerly awaiting the baby's birth. Katherine holds and rocks the baby, and helps with feedings, using a bottle of pre-pumped breast milk or formula. Katherine is fascinated with the baby and tells everyone about the new family member! You notice as the weeks go by that Katherine likes to imitate Isabella's sounds and movements, and enjoys play-acting a baby role. She is occasionally demanding and whiny, but other times prides herself on being a competent older sibling. From time to time Katherine overhears some arguments you and your partner have about household chores and other issues. During one recent argument you ended up walking out of the house in anger. Katherine started crying, and kept asking for days if you were going to run away. Later, you and your partner tried to calm Katherine down, telling her that you would not run away, and not to worry.

The baby's crib is in the living room right now. Katherine really wants to have Isabella in the room, and normally is able to sleep through the baby's crying at night, so you go ahead and move the crib into Katherine's room.

You and your partner are doing OK financially, but things are a little tight because you are saving for a down payment on a place of your own. Sometimes both of you feel stressed. You are not comfortable with the crime level in your neighborhood, and are anxious to move. 3 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS---- Katherine likes to tell people about things she has done, but she usually leaves out some key details. You listen to her telling of the story with great interest and ask questions to prompt her to fill in a few details.

You and your partner have saved enough for a down payment on a place of your own, with help from the relatives. You bundle up your little family and go looking.

3 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS ---Katherine recently has begun occasionally lying to you about accidents or rule violations (such as sneaking a cookie before dinner). The lies are pretty obvious (e.g., there is a trail of cookie crumbs). You recognize this as a sign of a theory of mind, but you wait until you catch her in the act, explain that lying is wrong, and put her in time-out. For good measure, you also explain that being lied to makes people feel bad.

Based on your finances, you buy a newer condo in the neighborhood you have been wanting to move into over the past two years. This means a change of preschool for Katherine, but hopefully she will not take too long to adjust to it.

Katherine has been in preschool for a while and you are curious about her progress. So you hire your friend the early development specialist to do a formal assessment and observation at the preschool during the summer.

Katherine's gross motor skills are above average, for example, climbing, riding on trikes, kicking balls and playing catch. Your friend encourages you to follow Katherine's interests in these physical areas.

Katherine was above average in understanding quantitative relationships such as "more/less", "longer/shorter", in counting skills, in classifying objects (e.g., types of animals) and in solving age-appropriate reasoning tasks. Your friend recommended that you continue to follow Katherine's interests, and to work on these skills indirectly (e.g., encourage counting as a part of games or other activities Katherine enjoys), rather than trying to teach them directly.

Based on the testing situation and the observations at the preschool, your friend thought that Katherine was cooperative and friendly with both adults and other children, and able to focus well on tasks. Katherine was quite self-confident in novel social situations and seemed to be well-liked by several children. She had several little friends in the preschool and was somewhat of a group leader in free play activities, such as imaginary play or riding trikes. She recommended that Katherine continue at the same preschool, and that you continue to be affectionate but firm on the rules at home. She thought that this was an appropriate age for Katherine to have little friends over from time to time, or to visit their homes for play dates.

She performed about average in copying designs, solving picture puzzles, and building block towers to match one made by the examiner. Your friend encouraged you to promote any of these activities that Katherine enjoys.

She scored about average in language comprehension and production. For example, when asked to tell a story about a funny picture, she was able to give the broad outlines as well as a few interesting details. Your friend recommended having more conversations with Katherine about anything of interest, reading aloud, watching educational television together and going to places of interest to her.

You filled out a parenting questionnaire. The developmental specialist reported that your scores indicate you are about average in warmth and affection displayed toward Katherine.The parenting questionnaire scores indicate you are currently about average in the discipline and control you exercise with Katherine.