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Running Head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES PROFILE

Individual Differences Student Profile

Kevin Lovell

Instructor: Samra Culum

EDUC 205: Development/ Individual Differences

Fall 2019
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Individual Differences Student Profile

Being unable to put one’s own thoughts to words can cause a hindrance in

communication. I will call my friend who has this problem “Billy” who is a teenager. In this

profile, I will lay out the general information at concerns the physical, cognitive, and the social-

emotional development of a student with Expressive Language Disorder (ELD). I will also

discuss the student’s approach to sports and learning as well with a summary of my findings of

him working through his development stages.

General Information

Billy is a 13 years old Caucasian middle schooler. He is originally from Montana, but

moved to Twin Falls, Idaho when he was about 5 years old. His native language is English and

his family speaks it is as well. Billy lives with his mom, little sister, and his grandparents. He has

a big brother that is currently away for school in Boise. His family currently lives with his

mother’s parents because his mom is going through a rough patch. His grandparents are currently

taking care of him and his sister. He still is able to see his mom from time to time. Billy also

spends a lot time with his grandpa. His dream job is to be a clothing designer and to play sports

in college. He loves sports as well and football and wrestling being his favorites so far.

Billy’s daily routine consist of him going to bed around 10 pm to wake up around 7 am

for school. He gets dropped off at school by either his grandma or grandpa. His class schedule

includes Digital Imaging, Language Arts, Science, Primetime, Social Studies, Art, Math and

Stem. After school, he does the sport that is in season and currently it is football and wrestling.

When Billy gets home from practice he immediately takes a shower, because he is sweaty and

disgusting from practice. After his shower, he will do any chores needed to be done and then eat

dinner. His chores include picking the living room, dishes, and taking out the trash. When Billy
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is done completing his family functions, he will do homework until bedtime. It does take him a

little longer to do word problems. If he does not have any homework to, or choose not to do it,

Netflix or video games until bed. Billy’s grandparents will try to help with homework as best

they can when needed. He has a problem of staying up late on his phone, so someone will come

into his room every now then to check if he is sleeping or goofing off.

Physical Development

Billy is a standard teenager and fits in with the other students. He has short brown hair

with brown eyes and white skin. Billy does have some weight with him and is around 5ft 7. He is

physically mature and mentally mature as well. He does have a pair of glasses that he does not

ware all the time. As of this paper, they are currently broken. The hand he is the most dominate

with is his right hand. He is able to comfortably fit in within a sports setting with his peers.

Billy is in healthy condition with only his eye sight not being the best. His family does

take him to physicals for sports and to the doctor if something is wrong. He does have pretty

good hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills as well. The student is a yearlong athlete. The

sports he does are football, wrestling, and is currently planning on doing basketball and track as

well. The basics of football and wrestling can almost be considered an automatic process for

him. With his family that has been doing wrestling for generations, his nutrition is good.

Wrestling requires the athlete to be on weight and Billy’s family knows the proper and healthy

ways to do so. Billy’s large and small muscle development is above average. This is due to him

gaining more muscle for being a yearlong athlete, so it normal and nothing for concern.

Cognitive Development

Billy lived in Montana till about 5 years old, so he only experience 1st grade there. He

experienced the rest of elementary school here in Twin Falls. For middle school, he was at
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Robert Stuart for 6th grade. Currently now, Billy is a 7th grader and switch over to O’Leary

Middle School at the beginning of the school year. This was due his family is now closer to it

and also grandpa coaches there as well.

As with Vygotysky’s sociocultural theory, the way Billy receives his values, beliefs,

customs, skills, and culture is different since he does not have “typical” family structure of a

nuclear family. He currently lives and his being taking of by his grandparents, so all of the stuff

he would receive is coming from one generation behind. Luckily his grandparents were able to

adapt and update t the current time’s ideas. There are a lot of older values such as respecting

authority, patriotism, and being discipline that has been heavily installed into Billy. He was able

to experience newer values though his teachers and friends.

Amongst of his classes, digital imaging is his favorite class. This does fit with him,

because of his dream job of being a clothing designer. The class allows him to express himself

more through his art. The least favorite class Billy has in his opinion is Math, because he does

not like it and finds it boring. Science and social studies were not observed. Overall, his

academic behavior is pretty good with him focusing on getting his work done in class.

The main subject of focus was his language arts class, because of him having trouble of

putting his thoughts into words. From my observations at football practice, when questioned, he

would stare at them for a couple seconds. From diving a little deeper and asking him about it, he

says it not that he does not understand what he is being asked, but just him trying to get his

thoughts together before he tries to say them. Billy gets what is being said to him, but the process

of him thinking of a response is hard for him. Talking to his grandpa about it, he says Billy has

been doing this as long as he could remember.

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When I went to talk to his language arts teacher, it is the same for writing as well. The

teacher was even willing to read what is on the board multiple times for all the students to make

sure they got the information down. He also lets Billy walk up to the front of class during work

time to see the board when he does have his glasses, because Billy sits in the back of the class.

Billy is also good at managing time a he would work on homework from other classes when

there is free time. This is a way he works through his ESD by working on his school work

whenever giving the free opportunity to do so.

Social-emotional Development

Billy does have good relationships with his friends and displays good social skills with

them. His friend group consists of his fellow teammates from his football and wrestling teams at

the middle school. He does hang out with them outside of school. It is mostly on the weekends or

going to volleyball and basket ball games at the middle school. They will also go together and

watch the high school football games and wrestling matches as well. Billy and his friends also

spend time playing video games online like Apex Legends and Call of Duty. If he is not around a

friend, he is quiet and keeps to himself. This is shown as he was in his language arts class sitting

with his island of three other students and he just did his own thing. Billy will only interact with

them when needed for class.

Billy has been socialized to be very respectful adults. This is due to his grandpa being a

big influence on that and him being a very respectful man as well. For example, he shakes the

coaches’ hand after practice and thanks them. He is also not afraid to go up to them or others and

ask for help when he needs it. Billy is pretty modest about himself, but is not afraid to peacock a

little bit as well. I would say that he would have a positive look on his self-esteem. He is going
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through socio-emotional stages in a healthy matter with no red flags, expect for him not trying to

socialize with non-teammate students.

Summary of Major Findings

My summary of the major findings shows that Billy is indeed a perfectly normal

teenager. There is still a little struggle with him getting his ideas out to words, but is emotionally,

socially, and physically healthy. School is a little hard for him with his Expressive Language

Disorder (ELD), but as I notice that his language arts teacher was little more lenient with him

and allowed him to take his time.

I do think the problem of him of socializing with non-teammates can potentially go bad if

left unchecked. However, it could that as he is adolescents stage of life, he could be”seeking

friends whose traits, interest, and values resemble” his own and the”preference for friends who

are prominent in the peer group system subsides” (Berk & Meyers). There could be a problem of

him unable to adapt to the mixing of his sports and school cultures and trying to keep them

separate in the social factor, but it still a little too early to tale as this is first year at O’Leary

Middle School. I would say his identity status identiy moratorium with him still to figure out

who he is, because he is taking a lot or plan to take of different elatives in middle school.

As with Piagets Cognitive-Development Theory, I believe Billy is in Concrete

Operational stage with him being able to think more logically and deal with solid information.

An example of this is him playing football. His main position was a tight end and with it came

routes blocking schemes for him to learn. He was able to learn it all and do it pretty well. What

could help is that it leaned into is learning style of watching someone do it and then do it himself.

Billy’s mesosystem is also pretty lively with his microsystems of coaches, home life and

teachers interact with each quite often. With his grandpa being a coach, his sports and home
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microsystems are greatly interconnected. Then you have me, another one of his coaches went to

go talk his teacher about his development and now those two microsystems were interline for a

little bit. With the Ecological Systems Theory, I do think him having his sports and home life

microsystems could be a small ticking time bomb as he has less room to move around in without

being in different place. His grandpa is trying his best to let Billy do his own thing, but it is hard

for him.

Billy is in a part of his life that can be very confusing and pretty hard time to get through.

. He is learning to work his ELD, by taking his time on his assignments. I think he is currently

set on the path to properly get through it.

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Works Cited

Berk, Laura E. Meyers, Adene B. Infants, Children, and Adolescents. Boston:

Allyn and Bacon, 2016. Print. (611)