CHILD DEVELOPMENT FIELD OBSERVATION ASSIGNMENT

There are a number of benefits of doing field observations in a child development course. One is to provide students with an opportunity to see the behavior of children in several different developmental stages as they study those stages. Another is to gain experience and skill in recording and interpreting children’s behavior with an eye toward understanding how it reflects their development. This is especially important for early childhood education practitioners who will need to plan for appropriately meeting children’s development needs in the classroom. A variety of observational methods are used by classroom teachers as part of child and program assessment. Tests may also be used to gather information but are often inaccurate for children younger than six. The purposes for assessing young children include the following: 1. To plan instruction for individuals and groups and for communicating with parents. 2. To identify children who may be in need of specialized services or intervention. 3. To evaluate how well a program is meeting its goals. OBSERVATION: Watch the child for at least thirty minutes. This may be done in a child care center or in someone’s home. Briefly describe the setting and time. Try not to interfere with the child’s behavior. Write exactly what you see the child do including sounds he/she makes and exact words, if any. Don’t summarize or leave out details. Be careful to use only words that describe behavior, making no interpretations or judgments about the meaning of the behavior. Behavioral observations should be objective. For example, instead of saying the child is unhappy try to describe what the child is doing like frowning or crying. Unhappy is an interpretation – your guess, even if it’s correct – so you would have to qualify your conclusion with “seemed.” You must clearly separate your opinions and interpretations from behavior. When you have finished observing and writing, look at the behavior you described and see what you learned about the child’s development. In your interpretation section write at least a substantial paragraph about each of the domains of development you saw evidence of (cognitive, language, physical, social and emotional) and how the child does or does not demonstrate typical development for his/her age. Use examples from your observation in describing the child’s skills in each area. Be sure to make use of what you have learned in the textbook about typical development. You may find the summary of developmental milestones in your textbook useful in determining how typical the child’s skills are. Use appropriate terminology and refer to some of the developmental theories in your analysis. The final criterion is Reflection. “Reflection is the process of looking at information or events, thinking about and critiquing them, and then using the results to change or enhance future events.” At the end of your paper respond to the following reflection question: Describe a valuable “lesson learned” from completing this assignment. Write about something unexpected you discovered about observing and recording and how you expect your next observation to be influenced by the experience of doing this one. This observation, interpretation and reflection should be at least four pages long, double-spaced, typed in 11 or 12-point font and carefully proof-read. Professional Ethics and Child Study: Be sure to review the section on this subject in your textbook. Use a pseudonym to protect the child’s right to privacy. Confidentiality is important to children and families. Book: Child Development 9th edition laura E. Berk topics cover in chapters: Chapter 1 Nature-nurture controversy Freud’s Theories of development Id, ego, superego Erikson’s Theories of development Piaget’s stages of development Sensitive period/critical period of development Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory Stability/Plasticity Resilience Chapter 2 Naturalistic observation Structured observation Observer influence/bias Independent/dependent variables Validity and reliability Longitudinal design Cross-sectional design Chapter 3 Zygote, embryo, fetus Teratogens General understanding of effects of substances on fetus (for example, fetal alcohol syndrome, etc.) Apgar scale (what does it test) Chapter 4 Reflexes Operant and classical conditioning Habituation Gross motor skills Fine motor skills Early deprivation/power of touch/genie case ACES Visual Cliff Chapter 5 Brain plasticity Brain development in adolescence Sensitive period (critical period) Experience-expectant brain growth Experience-dependent brain growth Malnutrition Growth faltering (failure to thrive) Emotional well-being The appearance of behaviors/patterns/needs cycling back to early childhood during adolescence Chapter 6 Schemes Assimilation Accommodation Egocentrism Imaginary audience/personal fable Object permanence Importance of make believe play Zone of proximal development Scaffolding