PEPSI Screening 1

PEPSI Screening
Jackson R. Mainguy

College of Southern Nevada

PEPSI
P- The first P refers to the physical development of the student in question and focuses

on how they have progressed. Looking at their overall fitness, body type, growth, and habits to

determine their physical development.

E- The E refers to the emotional development of the student. Looking at responses to

certain situations, seeing how they handle problems, and looking into possible coping or helpful

habits when in the school setting.

P- The second P refers to the philosophical development of the student. How they begin

to think about things and what avenues they take to reach those conclusions. Looking more

closely at how they begin to understand concepts like laws or morals.

S- The S is for the students social development. This looks into how they interact with

the people around them. This includes family, teachers, friends, students, etc. How well can

they integrate themselves into social positions?

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I- The I refers to the intellectual development of the student. Looking at how the

student can handle and understand formal operations, logic and reasoning, systematic

problems, and how thoughts impact problems.

Biography

Peyton Mainguy is a sophomore in high school taking 8 total classes as well as

participating in cross country and track and field. He has his strong suits in some classes but is

weaker in others like many students. However Peyton struggles with ADD and has trouble

focusing and keeping track of all his work and being in an online setting doesn’t necessarily help

with that. Upon working with him and reviewing his time in classes and doing assignments it’s

clear to see where his strengths and weaknesses lie. He struggles largely with his mathematics

and science classes as he is not as strong at logical thought (more on that in the screening

portion). He does better in his more abstract classes like english, photography, and theater. In

this screening I will look at and review the 5 parts of the acronym PEPSI and show how Peyton

holds up with other kids his age and where his development should be at certain points. This

means looking at his physical, emotional, philosophical, social, and intellectual development

and providing insight and support for areas that may be lacking.
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PEPSI

Physical Development

At this point in his physical development he has hit some points where he wont grow as

much overall with the exception potentially being his height. He is an above average height

standing at 6ft tall compared to the average 5’6” of his age. Other than that he is of average

weight and is fully capable of basic physical activities. He keeps up with his own fashion and

sense of body with what he enjoys at the time and what his peers also enjoy. He goes through

with a lot of exercise and does keep in mind his overall look with care. With regular changes in

fashion and changing exercise routines to fit his goals he naturally adapts to what is around him

and to what pushes him. There are noticeable signs of thought about these things when

someone says something about his attire or when he is at practice and he gets critiqued on how

well he performs. He uses these as a way to improve rather than give up and precedes to push

himself further to get to what he wants. Compared to other kids his age in terms of general

required fitness in Physical Education he can outperform most of his peers with mile times

more than a minute faster than the national average (Caporusico, 2019). He also falls within a

percentage of high school students at his level who participate in any physical activity for more

than an hour a day for seven days a week putting him physically above the average once again

(State of Childhood Obesity, 2020). In terms of recommendations for the student they are

performing rather well in most areas and I do not see there to be any need for work in their

physical development at this time.

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Emotional Development

In terms of emotional development the main area of interest here comes from Erik

Erikson’s model of psychosocial development mainly stage 5, Identity vs Role Confusion. Within

these stages of development Peyton begins looking at himself and thinking a little bit more

about what he wants and who he is. Upon observation he seems to have a decent self identity

and knows what he likes and doesn’t like. He shows that he can mold and change to adapt to

certain situations or groups which shows that he has a good grasp on understanding others in

this regard. He has begun looking into his own views and after discussions about either political
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events or general public problems he shows that he has his own views on these matters but

also takes a lot of influence from others. He doesn’t know what he wants to do moving forward

in terms of what he wants to do with his future. He doesn’t show any real interest in his future

plans which could affect him later being the “Role confusion” in this stage of development.

With only a sense of one's current self and no views towards the future he may end up unable

to move forward with his development and essentially stagnate on who he is now not what he

wants to become. I would recommend sessions looking into what options he may have lined up

for the future and have him start thinking about the things he may want to do. Even with some

slight idea he should be able to avoid any role confusion and preserve the identity he has of

himself right now.

Philosophical

Philosophical development plays more into the ability to realize one’s self and where

they stand. Looking at authority or general society and beginning to understand how it all starts

to fit together. Looking at laws and community guidelines and accepting them as fact as well as

deciding if what you do is for yourself or for the community. Upon my observation of peyton at

this point in his life he definitely has an regard for authority and community rules in general. He

has grown up around teachers, as his parents are CCSD (Clark County School District)

employees, and thus has an understanding for the school setting and how to behave and react.

He knows and properly understands what he should do for himself and what he should do for

the community. Constantly out helping people in school with some work or helping out on the

track he has a sense of community and what he feels is required of him. These beliefs play into

his philosophical development because he understands what he should be doing, whereas

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other students may see someone struggling to do something and keep walking. Peyton

becomes a member of each community he enters with ease because he is able to understand

his role and standing there. In terms of recommendations he seems to have a decent grasp on

his beliefs and what he should be doing at this stage in his life. I observed proper behaviors and

respect towards authorities meaning there isn’t much work needed to be done to improve this

area of development.

Social

For social development this stage focuses mainly on the students' interactions with

everyone from teachers and staff to their peers. Within high school especially, many students

form their own groups or like minded people and as you get older the main groups grow

smaller. Peyton has his group of friends he has been with since middle school as well as new

friends that have been formed in his classes and extracurricular activities. Even in these groups

smaller groups form like in cross country. He is friendly with everyone there but has his own

smaller group of 4-5 people that he regularly is around. These groups allow him to keep close

like minded individuals and can also help shape hima little bit socially. He is very much an

extrovert and is able to mold into any group around. I see this as a good and a bad thing. With

his ability to mold and change he can be very socially adept, however, with this it may be more

difficult for him to be “himself” when he changes depending on the people around. Knowing

him personally from the observations I can tell what is his “true” self and what isn’t. One way to

support this is to invite students to use their character strengths (Eva, 2019). This could help

students look more at what they deem important socially rather than what others deem

important. Knowing how you yourself act and be self conscious helps a lot with social
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development. For recommendations I think Peyton has a decent grasp on how to handle society

and social situations in general. He works well with others and fits well into groups with ease.

He has his own set of solid friendships that he plans to stick with as well as other general

connections.

Intellectual

The final part of the PEPSI screening looks at intellectual development which is a little

more complicated than the other topics. Intellect looks at many different points but we’ll look

at his general academics and performance abilities. This area of development is where Peyton

falls the shortest. He has some special circumstances that must be taken into account when

looking at his ability to perform in academics. Firstly his ability to think abstractly and forge

solutions to problems. In regards to this he can think much more abstractly than concretely.

When it comes to more logical based problems is when he falls short. With his classes he does

best in his more creative classes like photography, film studies, and english. This is because he

suffers from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). This basically means he has short attention spans,

less reliable memory, and can become distracted rather easily. So for classes that invoke and

use more of his creative thought he is able to excel. He works hard at what he can do in these

classes because he gets a sense of accomplishment from them. As opposed to his more

concrete classes like mathematics and science. Time and time again I have seen him struggle

and get angry with these classes because he can’t give 100% of his attention to them. He loses

track, doesn’t pay attention, or forgets most things causing him to struggle. There are school

based ways to help with this however. As he has been diagnosed he has a special request that

he can ask for more time on readings and tests if required to help support these problems.
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Intelligence is a hard thing to try and support and can’t be changed at the drop of a hat like

most things here. There are support options within the school to help him with the problems he

has, but really the only thing I would say is to try and keep with what he is good at. Being able

to do the essentials is important but if he is better at arts and creativity then that’s where his

priorities should lie in further education.

Conclusion

Based on the aforementioned points in the PEPSI screening there are some areas where

Peyton falls short but he also has areas where he is very strong. His physical development being

his best performing section and his intellectual development being his lowest. Overall he has

the capability to improve and has a good sense of himself. He has a good understanding of the

world around him which is good for someone around his age. I can see from my observations

that he tries his best at everything he does and although he doesn’t always do the best he

works towards getting better. This was an interesting way to look at a student and see from a

third party view how all these different developmental stages are actually shown and reflected

in real life. Seeing the application of psychology in the real world is fun to see and really makes

the learning experience more worth it. Using these as a teacher to better reflect on students

who may be struggling in certain areas is a good way to see how they need help.
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