Plan to spend about one to two hours with a child ranging from around age one to age three AND a child within the range of four to seven and at least one of their parents. Children can be from the same family. For your observations, make sure that the TV or other electronics are away from the child. Be sure that you are in an environment that you can complete the following components during the one to two hours. Although not necessary, it might be helpful to video or audio record this observation and then take notes. You should carefully review the questions to be answered in the paper and make sure that you collect information during your observation that will allow you to answer each question.
For each question under QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS IN THE PAPER, you should describe the child’s behavior during your observation and then cite and discuss the research related to this behavior. Papers should be about 8-10 pages, double-spaced (12 point font) and one-inch margins. You must cite page numbers for the research that you use in your paper, simply (p. 102) will be fine.
INFANT/ TODDLER/ THREE YEAR-OLD OBSERVATION
Child at free play or just watching what they are doing
- Make observational notes on their physical characteristics and their gross and fine motor behaviors.
- Observe their behaviors and make notes that relate to behaviors surrounding play or their cognitive abilities.
- Try to initiate a game of make-believe play and see how the child responds. Can you get the child to imitate what you do? Can you suggest a make-believe game and see how they respond? Do they offer suggestions about the game?
- Have the parent play a game with the child (e.g., do a puzzle, tell a story, look at a book, hand clapping game, etc). Make notes about this interaction.
- Spend at least 5 minutes “talking” to the child and make notes on how they try to communicate with you and/or their language abilities.
QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS IN THE PAPER
After the observation, review your notes and discuss the following questions using the research on each topic from your textbook. You must cite page numbers for the research that you use in your paper for each question, but simply (p. 102) will be fine.
- Based on their behaviors, discuss what stage of Piaget’s theory would the child would fall under and explain why.
- What capabilities and/or challenges does the child have that fall under this stage of Piaget’s theory?
- Using the terms related to information processing theory, describe the child’s abilities related to attention and memory and knowledge base.
- Using the terms of intersubjectivity, joint attention, and scaffolding, discuss how the parent interacted with the child during play.
- Describe the child’s emotional and social behavior.
- Did they display positive or negative moods during your time?
- Did they seem to want to interact with you or the parent or were they shy?
- Did they readily explore and play without hovering around the parent?
- Discuss the child’s temperament, give a “classification” to their temperament and explain why.
EARLY CHILDHOOD OBSERVATION (BETWEEN THE AGES OF FOUR AND SEVEN)
Child at free play or just watching what they are doing
- Make observational notes on their physical characteristics and their gross and fine motor behaviors.
- Observe their behaviors and make notes that relate to behaviors surrounding play or their cognitive abilities.
- Try to initiate a game of make-believe play and see how the child responds. Can you get the child to imitate what you do? Can you suggest a make-believe game and see how they respond? Do they offer suggestions about the game?
- Have the parent play a game with the child (e.g., do a puzzle, tell a story, look at a book, hand clapping game, etc). Make notes about this interaction.
- Spend at least 5 minutes “talking” to the child and make notes on how they try to communicate with you and/or their language abilities.
QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS IN THE PAPER
After the observation, review your notes and discuss the following questions using the research on each topic from your textbook. You must cite page numbers for the research that you use in your paper for each question, but simply (p. 102) will be fine.
- Based on their behaviors, discuss what stage of Piaget’s theory would the child would fall under and explain why.
- What capabilities and/or challenges does the child have that fall under this stage of Piaget’s theory?
- Using the terms related to information processing theory, describe the child’s abilities related to attention and memory and knowledge base.
- Using the terms of intersubjectivity, joint attention, and scaffolding, discuss how the parent interacted with the child during play
- Describe the child’s emotional and social behavior.
- Did the child engage in gender-stereotyped play?
- Discuss their behaviors in terms of aggressive and pro-social behaviors.
- Think about how the parent interacted with the child during the parent-child interaction.
- What kind of parenting style did they use?
- Describe the specific parenting style and explain why you would select this particular style.
- Please note, it is not so much asking the parent questions…but observing their interactions with their child. Review and connect to the sections of the Berk text regarding parenting/parenting styles. If you are doing your observations early, this might require pre-reading the parenting portions.
