Running head: PEPSI SCREENING 1

Physical Development

Olivia Natalie Carranza

College of Southern Nevada

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Biography

The child I have observed for this PEPSI screening is Amy Janel Jimenez. She is the daughter

my close family friends Raul and Miriam Jimenez. She is a Hispanic female born in Las Vegas

Nevada and is currently 6 years of age. She will be 7 this October. She has lived in Las Vegas

her whole life, alongside her two sisters who are 10 and 8 years old, and two brothers who are 3

years and 4 months old. She is the middle child in a family of seven, including her parents. Amy

lives with her mother and father in a small two-bedroom apartment twenty minutes away from

the strip. Their economic status is lower-middle class. Amy is in kindergarten, presently being

taught at home by her stay at home mother. Amy’s father, Raul, works in construction and her

mother, Miriam, is a graduate from beauty school. English is Amy’s second language, having a

father who speaks mostly Spanish and a mother who speaks English and Spanish, Amy first

learned to speak and understand Spanish. Having both her older sisters speaking English, Amy

was quick to pick up the language and is now fluent in both. Amy is the typical girlie girl who

loves to play with baby dolls and barbies, but she has also learned to defend and stand up for

herself against her siblings. Amy is a very active child who loves doing physical activities

outdoors. She enjoys running and climbing on trees. She engages in sports, such as, soccer and

some free style gymnastics. Amy loves to dance, but she does not attend a school or any kind of

classes for this activity. Amy and her family attend a Christian church, they are of the Baptist

denomination. Her parents have strong beliefs in God and in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Amy

has also stated that she too is a Christian and that she loves to attend church and Sunday school.

She is very curious and asks many questions, She is also a social butterfly who makes friends

very easily and loves to be the center of attention.

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Physical Development

Amy is 6 years old. She weighs 41.0 lbs. and is 44 inches tall. According to a chart I

found on the website Disabled world, Amy is below average in weight and in height. The

average 6-year-old female should weigh 44.0 lbs. and should be 45.5 inches tall. Amy is very

active and likes to play. According to the Developmentally Appropriate Practice, third edition,

“The ideal time for children to develop basic physical skills is from ages 2-7-during their

fundamental movement phase (Gallahue 1995, 131-3)” Amy definitely falls under this category

and has developed these basic skills. She is very good at playing soccer, which uses the skills of

kicking and running. Not only is she active outdoors but she has also greatly increased her fine

motor skills. Amy started kindergarten this school year, and one of the areas she has had

tremendous growth in is in the fine motor skills area. She is very good at drawing and using her

hands to create and color things. Now that she is older she has become better at coloring within

the lines and her handwriting has greatly improved. Before she turned 5 years of age, the most

she would write were random letter on a piece of paper that looked more like scribbles than

words. Now she has been able to grow in this area and can write her name, and 3-4 letter words

on a piece of paper. When she first began writing, she did not have the ability to write in a

straight line on a piece of paper, nor could she hold the pencil comfortably in her hand.

According to a study conducted by Tammy Greer and Jefferey J. Lockman, they were able to

show with two studies that the average three-year-old had limited ways they could grip the

pencil. Six moths after this study was conducted, the same three-year-old were able to hold or

grip the pencil in a more adult manner than before. This study was able to prove and show that as

time goes by, children were able to develop their motor skills and learned of new ways to write

more comfortably.
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Emotional Development

Amy is a child who has grown so much in the emotional developmental area. As stated in

the DAP book, “Children at ages 5 to 6 are developing a greater understanding of others’ minds

and emotions (Denham & Kochanoff 2002; Perner, Lang, & Kloo 2002) and can correctly judge

the causes of emotions in many cases.” At the age of 3 and 4 Amy was not able to do this, but I

have seen her able to read her brothers emotions and tell me why he is sad or upset for any

reason. I babysit them quite often, and sometimes I cannot tell why her 3-year-old brother is

upset, and something I have noticed is that Amy is able to tell me why he is upset. She is able to

communicate the cause and she is able to tell me what can be done to make him happy or feel

better. Amy is also able to withhold emotions depending on the circumstances. I found Self-

regulation of emotion very interesting. According to a report/article written by Bodrova and

Leong, “Self-regulated children can delay gratification and suppress their immediate impulses

enough to think ahead to the possible consequences of their action or to consider alternative

actions that would be more appropriate.” I found this very interesting because I have been able to

witness Amy doing this first hand. She is able to read the situation and act according to the

situation she is faced with. I was able to correlate her emotional behavior to this article because

she has clearly become very good at self-regulating her emotional behavior. Amy is also a very

sympathetic as mentioned in the DAP book, she is the child that will give a hug and a kiss to

anyone who looks like they are upset or maybe sad. I think she has been able to pick this action

and emotional behavior from her mother. Amy has learned that when she is upset or sad, her

mothers’ hugs and kisses make her feel better, I think she is able to put these things together and

therefore does it herself to other kids. (Koestner. Franz, & Weinberger 1990; Strayer & Roberts

2004)
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Philosophical Development

Many people believe that children cannot have philosophical thoughts until the age of 12

and older. “Jean Piaget’s (1933 ) well-known theory of cognitive development suggests that

prior to age 11 or 12, most children are not capable of philosophical thinking.” This was

stated on an article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Amy is only 6 years old and

has already asked herself and her parents questions like, “Who made God?” or “How come I

can only see through my eyes and not yours?” These kinds of questions are very

philosophical, and I believe that although she may not be able to answer the questions

herself, the simple act of asking already shows that children can think philosophically at a

young age. Children learn to think philosophically because they question reality and want to

further understand it. One of the biggest ways I have seen Amy do this is by comparing the

real world with her imagination. She often makes comparisons between her reality and the

reality of the world before us. She wonders why we can’t fly and float around the way she

does in her dreams and in her imagination, for us the answer is simple, gravity. For children

questioning or making comparisons like this is what shows that a child can and does think

philosophically. The reason why I believe she has been able to develop this area is because of

the way she grew up. Her mother, Miriam, would make a constant effort to make them ask

questions and to make them think for themselves. Her mother was able to encourage this way

of thinking by answering her question with another question. By doing this, her mother was

able to successfully teach Amy to think for herself and was able to teach her daughter to not

just do things, but to question and answer what she was curious about. I am a strong believer

that philosophical development happens at home first and then is continued elsewhere.
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Social Development

Amy is a very confident child. She has never been afraid to make new friends, she is a

social butterfly. A report made by Shonkoff and Phillips 2000 says, “The consequences of early

experiences for later behavioral functioning, including the ability to initiate and sustain

relationships and to succeed in school and at the workplace, are of central interest to theory and

policy.” I strongly believe that the reason why Amy is able to socialize so freely and confidently

is because of her early experiences with her siblings and their friends. Having older sisters, Amy

has grown up around their friends who range between the ages of 8-10. She has never been shy

around them and she is able to keep a conversation with them as well. A study on the

Consistency and Development of Prosocial Dispositions: A Longitudinal Study states,

“Empathy-related responding has been intimately linked to prosocial behavior, both conceptually

and empirically.” (Eisenburg & Fabes 1998) Meaning that a child, like Amy, with a very strong

role model at home, in her case, is more likely to mimic and respond with positive social

behavior to any situation. This would allow Amy to have a more successful school year with her

teachers in the future and with her classmates because she would be able to hold on to and create

relationships with them. Although Amy is very good at socializing and being with others, like

every child she tends to seek approval and “want to be viewed as being good, (Wood 2007)” as

stated in the DAP book. Amy does not attend a public school and is currently being taught at

home by her mother, but I have observed that she tries to do this with adults from the church who

teach her Sunday school class. I think it goes back to her wanting to seek approval and attention

from other people who are not her parents. Being the middle child, emotional behavior like this

is common and not unheard of.

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Intellectual Development

From preschool to kindergarten, the brain grows steadily, increasing from 70 percent to

90 percent of its eventual adult weight (Thatcher et al. 1996.) Amy is in kindergarten and her

intellectual development has been the one I have noticed the most growth in such a short amount

of time. At the age of 4-5 Amy was not able to read or write. In only 7 months of her starting

school, Amy has learned to read, spell, count, add, subtract, and count money. It has been such an

impressive observation period for me to be able to see how much information Amy has been able

to retain and understand in such a short amount of time. I can even hear the difference in her

vocabulary as she continues to go through kindergarten. She now uses words like heavier and

lighter, or words like first, or second in her every day vocabulary. This shows that she is learning

new words every day and learning how to apply and use them herself (Anglin 1993). According

to DAP, both the development of the brain and the experiences one faces are contributors to the

growth of memory span in older children. I have been able to observe that Amy has better

memory when it comes to literature we read. I have read several books with her, and some of

those books have questions at the end that should be asked to see if a child understood the story.

Amy has been able to answer these questions and give detailed explanations when the answer

requires it. Her memory has developed as well as her ability to understand that actions can cause

reactions. Amy has become aware of this because of her own experiences in life. She has been

able to say that the reason why something happened is because something caused it to happen.

This is also part of her intellectual development, because she is now able to think and reason in

order to come up with a conclusion. The more experiences she goes through, the more she will

be able to develop this area in her life.

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Graph for Weight and Height

*Taken from the disabled world website to support my finding on the average weight and height

of a six-year-old female. *
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Recommendations

Amy is a very active child. One recommendation that I would give for her physical

development would be to make sure that she remains hydrated. Living in Las Vegas, and doing

all the physical activity she does daily, drinking water is one of the most essential things that will

help keep her very active body healthy. I would also recommend giving Amy more vegetables

and healthy carbs and proteins like chicken and beans that will help her gain some weight and at

the same time give her more energy to keep up with her active schedule. Amy is not only doing

great physically, but I am also impressed with her emotional development. I would however

recommend having Amy become less dependent on her mom or others for approval in

everything. It is a normal tendency for children to seek approval from others, but it is better for

children to be proud of themselves and not need approval from anyone. By teaching Amy to be

proud of her ow work and showing her to do things for her ow personal happiness will teacher

her to become less dependent on others praise and approval. Amy is a great philosophical thinker

already, she asks herself questions and is not satisfied until she finds the answer. I would

recommend for her parents to continue answering her questions with another question, this will

teach Amy to problem solve on her own and to think and answer questions for herself. Amy is

already a very social butterfly who gets along with almost every kid, but if I could make one

recommendation on her social development, it would be to have Amy be around children who

are her age. She often is around kids who are older and has become very mature, allowing her to

be around children her age will help her develop her imagination and allow her to have more fun.

The last area would be her intellectual development. Although she has had a tremendous amount

of growth in this area, I would recommend having Amy read books that are at her level of

learning. Smaller books are easy for her, so I would give her something more challenging.
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References

Anglin, J. M. 1993. Vocabulary development: A morphological

analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in

Child Development, vol. 58, no. 238. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bodrova, E., & D.J. Leong. 2008. Developing self-regulation in kindergarten: Can we keep the

crickets in the basket? Young Children 63 (2):56-58

Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early

childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8.3rd ed. Washington,

D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Denham, S.A., & A.T. Kochanoff. 2002. Parental contributions to preschooler’s understanding of

emotion. Marriage and Family Review 34: 311-43

Disabled World. (2017/11/30). <a href="https://www.disabled-world.com/calculators-

charts/height-weight-teens.php">Average Height to Weight Chart - Babies to

Teenagers</a>. Retrieved 2019-03-16, from https://www.disabled-world.com/calculators-

charts/height-weight-teens.php
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Eisenberg, Nancy; Guthrie, Ivanna K.; Murphy, Bridget C.; Shepard, Stephanie A.; Cumberland,

Amanda; and Carlo, Gustavo, "Consistency and Development of Prosocial Dispositions:

A Longitudinal Study" (1999). Faculty Publications, Department of Psychology. Paper

103. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/psychfacpub/103

Gallahue, D.L. 1995 Transforming physical education curriculum, In Reaching potentials, Vol. 2:

Transforming early childhood curriculum and assessment, eds. S. Bredekamp & T.

Rosegrant, 125-44. Washington, DC: NAEYC

Greer, T., & J.J Lockman. 1998. Using writing instruments: Invariances in young children and

adults. Child Development 69 (4): 888-902

Koestner, R.,C. Franz, & J. Weinberger. 1990. The family origins of empathetic concern: A 26-

year Longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58: 709-16.

Piaget, Jean, 1933, “Children’s Philosophies,” in A Handbook of Child Psychology, Carl

Murchison (ed.), 2nd ed. rev., Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.

Pritchard, Michael, "Philosophy for Children", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter

2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/children/>.
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Shonkoff, J.P., & D.A. Philips, eds. 2000. From neurons to Neighborhoods: The science of

early childhood development. A report of the National Research Council. Washington.

DC: National Academies Press.

Thatcher, R.W., G.R. Lyon, J. Rumsey, & J. Krasnegor. 1996.

Developmental neuroimaging. San Diego: Academic Press.

Tillmanns, Dr. Maria de Venza. “Children, Intuitive Knowledge & Philosophy.” Philosophy

Now: a Magazine of Ideas, American Society for Philosophy, 2017,

philosophynow.org/issues/119/Children_Intuitive_Knowledge_and_Philosophy.
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