Developmental Case Study
Child Natalie Age 4
Natalie is a Caucasian 4-year-old female student at the VPK center in which I am a
Director. She has been vaccinated and currently has no known significant physical or
developmental diagnosis. The health information shared by her mother, who is also a teacher at
the VPK center Natalie attends, shows that Natalie is healthy and only a little shorter than normal
for her age. Natalie has a stable homelife, doesn’t have any nutritional requirements that aren’t
being met, and currently seems right on track cognitively. Natalie has demonstrated in class that
she can navigate groups of children and meets measurable criteria for social development.
Observing activities during class, playtime and social interactions are how I gathered
most of the data for this case study for Natalie. The first area of observation was looking into
Natalie’s current cognitive levels. Children at her age should be able recognize patterns, which
indicate the beginning of complex association with visual and verbal ideas, and Natalie is doing
great with her ABC’s and alphabet flash cards. Natalie can identify animals, shapes, colors and
has favorites of each which she can draw or attempt to analog. Natalie can follow instructions
and can perform request that have more than two function that demonstrates her cognitive ability
to order, recall and complete fundamental complex request. Natalie is also very good at
remembering sing-songs and the associated activities with those songs taught to her by different
teachers in her program. She understands what is required when they sing the “clean-up” song or
the “line” song.
The next set of activities and information was on Natalie’s physical development.
Observing her at play outside, constructive play inside and her ability to complete classroom
activities that requires the use of physical dexterity, such as cutting out animals with scissors,
provided data points for her physical development. There is one variable that stood out when
doing a physical assessment for Natalie, and that is being short for her age, but that is related to
heredity and not any nutritional issue because her mother is also very short. This is the difficulty
sometimes assessing a child physical development from a simple visual inspection because you
do not know if what may look underdevelopment could simply be a hereditary factor like hair
color or skin color. Natalie has no problems eating any kinds of foods and doesn’t have any
known allergies however she will be having her tonsils out because of previous problems.
Social development is the third category of data for the case study. Natalie can
understand social queues from her teacher and other students and demonstrates expression for
emotions such as frustration and happiness. There are no hereditary or clinical diagnoses that
should hinder or impede social development found in Natalie’s family or Natalie herself. Natalie
participates in group play and self-play seamlessly and sometimes takes leadership roles on
constructive play exercises in class. She does have her moments during frustration during
activities but is learning proper behaviors as her peers are in class.
Overall Natalie is line with models for cognitive, physical and social development as
noted in “Early Childhood social and emotional development”. She is also in line with physical
traits and norms for children of her age with no discernable negative aspects to her development.
There were no historical developmental issues such as speech or hearing difficulty so that impact
data was not applicable to this child. This year Natalie will be completing her VPK class and
getting ready for Kindergarten. Natalie already can write her name, say her ABC’s and identify a
list of words provided by the primary school in the local community. Natalie does have the
benefit of her mother being an educator, so she continues Natalie’s schooling into her home life
which creates a great learning continuity.
Child Ryan age 9
Ryan is a Caucasian female that is nine years old. She has attended our VPK center for
the last 5 years,4 in the afterschool program and for her VPK class in prep for Kindergarten. The
information I’ve gathered for his case study is from interactions with Ryan over the years, her
after school class and elementary class observation. Overall Ryan is well behaved, physically
active and seems socially well adjusted. Ryan does have a speech impediment and we will
discuss its impact later in the case study. There are also environmental variables in her home that
is leading to some behavioral disorders that we are attempting to mitigate in class.
Cognitively Ryan is typical 9-year-old and there are no cognitive issues related to
environmental, nutritional or social development brought over from early childhood. Ryan was
cared for by both of her parents and attended VPK and so she was exposed to learning
requirements and stimulation from an early age. (Bergin and Bergin, 2018) Ryan’s testing in
math, reading and classroom learning task have come back positive. Ryan has been making A’s
and B’s through 4th grade and has no significant learning hurdle or barriers in class. Ryan has
been taking an accelerated writing course in her schools which offers a ride array of classes to
expanded on student natural abilities and interest. The ability of the students to take classes that
appeal to their interest and learning type are in line with positive cognitive development. Ryan
has developed her own interest in books, writing and spelling with average interest in other
topics like math and the sciences.
Physically Ryan is developing along with her peers with weight, height and other
measurable physical aspects. Ryan plays soccer in a local sports group and has had no known
problems related to physical activity. Ryan does have a speech impediment that was a result of a
physical issue that has since been corrected with surgery. Ryan has had no issue with weight due
to her interest in physical activities like soccer and her parents desire to feed her balanced
healthy meals. Ryan’s father makes sure their family eats well as a result of the environment he
grew up in which his parents were overweight and there were some concerns of childhood
diabetes. Making sure children do not have sedentary lifestyle and good diet can reduce the risk
of obesity and childhood diabetes.
Socially Ryan has had issue related to her speech impediment. In the standard metrics of
social interaction with per groups and her understanding of social hierarchies Ryan appears to be
in line with age group. (Bergin and Bergin, 2018) Ryan has had difficulty with dealing with
teasing and other frustrations so there were times when corrective measures had to be taken to
help Ryan develop recognition and coping mechanism. (Darling-Churchhill &Lippman,2016)
There have been recent developments in the home that is adding to Ryan anxiety dealing with
her parents. We continue to evaluate Ryan’s behaviors and classroom interactions with other
students to identify any issue that could arise.
Overall Ryan is a well-rounded child who has dealt with some issues that affect her
physically and socially but in no way has impeded her development. Despite the need for every
child to have perfect life in some cases it’s the imperfect life that gives them a path to go down.
In Ryan’s case her speech impediment seems to have steered her to writing and reading in which
she doesn’t have to concern herself with the speech issues. Ryan has had corrective surgery and
has recently begun to go to a clinical professional to rehabilitate her speech. With a bit of work
this problem can be resolved before it develops into a long-term speech problem. Ryan has
augmented her perceived weaknesses with other strengths that will serve her going forward.
References
Bergin & Bergin, Child and Adolescent Development in Your Classroom. 3rd ed. 2018. Cengage,
ISBN 9781337687232.
Darling-Churchhill, Kristen Lippman, Laura. (2016). Early childhood social and emotional
development: Advancing the field of measurement.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 45
, 1-7.
LaRowe, T. L., Tomayko, E. J., Meinen, A. M., Hoiting, J., Saxler, C., & Cullen, B. (2016).
Active early: One-year policy intervention to increase physical activity among early care
and education programs in wisconsin. BMC Public Health, 16
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1186/s12889-016-3198-3
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