Running head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES STUDENT PROFILE 1

Individual Differences Student Profile

Marie Weidner

Instructor: Natalie Raass

EDUC 230 Intro to Special Education

Fall 2017
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Individual Differences Student Profile

Over the last semester I have had the wonderful opportunity to observe a wonderful

young man that I will refer to as Joseph. I observed him during his seventh grade English and

Literature class periods at a local middle school. Joseph is a twelve-year-old Caucasian boy with

some minor attention deficit and learning disabilities. Over the course of this paper I will be

going more in depth about Joseph’s specific general information, physical development,

cognitive and socio-emotional development, and will be providing a summary of other

characteristics I was able to observe during my time with Joseph.

General Information

Joseph is a very outgoing funny young man who unfortunately had some hard ships with

paying attention and staying on task with his school work. It was suggested to his parents this

year, entering the seventh grade, that he should have some special accommodations and therefor

was placed on a 504 plan. Joseph is 12 years and eight months old and Caucasian. He is a bit

taller on average than his peers and roughly 5ft 8in tall. I was unable to gather much information

about his family interactions or living situation other than he lives with his parents. I learned

from the teacher that Joseph’s mother is very involved with his education and insuring everyone

is on the same page with how he is doing as far as his school work is concerned. They have

consistent phone conferences as well as email communications.

Joseph spends his school day in a general education setting and is not involved in any

outside programs at this present time. His parents are interested in maybe enrolling him in a

tutoring center in the future if needed. His schedule includes a typical eight period class schedule

such as physical education, English, math, science, social studies, and his favorite class being

band. He enjoys playing the drums.

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Physical Development

Joseph has brown hair, brown eyes, no noticeable birth marks, and is white in

complexion. As stated earlier he is very tall but sometimes has some setbacks with his large

muscle development. Being tall it has been mentioned to him to go out for school sports such as

basketball, but he has expressed his distaste with sports. Upon observing him run and walk he

tends to turn his knees in and almost walks with a long stride that appears like he is limping.

Compared with his fellow classmates he hit an early growth spurt, but his muscle development

and maturation seem a bit behind or delayed.

Joseph is very lean but eats quite a bit and not the healthiest of food choices. He says his

favorite snack is potato chips and loves grape soda. Observing him during lunch time he would

always go for the pizza line. He doesn’t exercise a whole lot either and prefers to play video

games in his spare time. He does however enjoy reading books of his choosing. A neat fact

about Joseph is that he is ambidextrous. He does however prefer to use his left hand to write.

His small muscle development appears to be on track with his peers, although he does not have

the best penmanship he is absolutely very talented when it comes to drawing.

Cognitive Development

As I previously stated Joseph spends his day in the general education classroom and does

not require any assistance from an aide or any outside special education accommodations. On

the 504 plan he receives a little extra time on assignments and sometimes receives leniency on

the grading of his assignments and tests. He also on occasion will have low scores dropped from

his overall grade and will be given an alternate assignment if needed to test on mastery or

understanding of a concept. His grades for the most part is average amongst his peers’ grades

with a mostly B average. The area he mostly struggles in would be English writing and
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composition, where he currently has a D as well as Physical Education where he has an F. His

strongest course of study would be in band where he plays with percussion instruments, he holds

an A in this class. He also really enjoys the Reading half of his English course and this is

reflected by an A grade.

Although I was not able to observe him during an entire school day, I was able to observe

him in both of his English sections. His attention span and motivation during the writing and

composition section was short and it took him a while to get going on assignments. He would

often be distracted by others engaging with him or by whatever he could find to play with to

keep him from doing his work. When it came to reading he was right on top of it and would

often raise his hand to join in class discussion.

Joseph shows similar signs of being in Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage of

development. Where he understands things at a logical level but still shows a few characteristics

of a preadolescent child. He sometimes speaks out of turn or will say things inappropriate for

the topic that is being discussed. He understands that not everyone will agree with his same

feelings but at the same time will also become upset or frustrated when told he is wrong.

Socio-emotional Development

Joseph is like I said very outgoing and enjoys interacting with his peers on a regular

basis. At times his conversations can become a distraction to the other students and sometimes at

inappropriate times during class discussion. His peers seem to for the most part enjoy his

engagement with them and the topics in which they discuss so maturity wise he appears to be at a

consistent level with his fellow classmates. His interactions with adults on the other hand appears

to be lacking a bit. He will come off as shy or unengaged in the conversation. He sometimes will
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shut down completely if he is not interested in the topic being discussed. He sometimes will

speak out of turn on occasion and will ignore simple instructions if it does not interest him.

His self-concept based off how others view him is that he is funny and loud but at times

immature in his subject matter. His self-esteem and how he views himself is that of an artistic

individual and “just love(s) his friends,” easygoing, and is generally happy with his surroundings

and environment. During my observation time I would say that Joseph falls under Erikson’s

fourth state of socio-emotional development, Industry vs. Inferiority stage. This is the stage

where the child will be “demonstrating specific competencies that are value by society and begin

to develop a sense of pride in their accomplishments” (McLeod, 2001). Joseph has shown this by

being again very proud of his artistic and percussion abilities. He shows strong interest in the

areas of art over other subjects and he certainly loves talking about it.

In conclusion, I feel that Joseph will have a successful future ahead of him with little to

no outside implications. He has such a large support system behind him with his parents and

teachers to give him a chance at the best possible positive outcome with his education. I have

learned a lot from this experience and plan to keep this in mind when I enter my own classroom

in the future and I encounter a child like Joseph.

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References

Piaget Stages of Development. (2015, July 7). Retrieved December 17, 2017, from

https://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development#1

McLeod, S. (1970, January 01). Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Development. Retrieved

December 18, 2017, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html