Mckimmey 1

P.E.P.S.I. Screening Project

Cheyanne L. McKimmey

College of Southern Nevada

EDU 220-1005 -Principles of Education Psychology

Dr. Vincent Richardson

11 April 2021
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Biography:

The child being seen for the P.E.P.S.I project is a 17-year-old female who lives in

Centennial Hills and will be graduating in May from Northwest. She Was born and raised in LAs

Vegas, Nevada and lives with her aunt, father and 3 dogs in their 2-story house. Her relationship

with her dad is incredibly special and their bond is unbreakable. She spends a lot of time with her

friends and family and is very family oriented. This child is Okinawan and Hawaiian and visits

her family in Hawaii as much as she can. She has an older brother although they are not

remarkably close, she still tries to stay connected to see her nephew who is about 4 years old.

This child is very smart and athletic and ran for both cross country and track & field. During her

free time, she likes to hang out with her friends and go on adventures. She is very spontaneous

and loves to try new things. When it comes to school, she stays on top of her schoolwork and

earns A’s and B’s. She plans to go to UNLV for healthcare administration in which she hopes to

go all the way through to her masters.

Once the pandemic hit, she learned to balance online school well. Although it was

difficult switching to all online, she found her way and was more than capable of handling it. She

misses being able to go in person and seeing her friends and doing the sports she loves but she is

okay with it if she can graduate and take the next step in life. With her major she plans to work in

a hospital and hopefully become one of the CEOs for the business side of the hospital. This

includes handling the finances that the hospital has. If her plan for that does not work, plan b is
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to work as an inpatient care assistant which requires her to go to the patients and take vitals,

temperature, blood pressure etc.

Physical Development:

As far as physical development, my subject tends to fall in the “role confusion” stage.

According to the text, “the goal at this stage is development of the roles and skills that will

prepare adolescents to take a meaningful place in adult society.” (McCown & Snowman, 2015).

She falls under this category because she is in high school and the age ranges from 12-18 years

of age, in other words, middle school and high school. My subject is about 5 feet 5 inches and

weighs about 110 pounds. She has brown eyes, dark hair that has been dyed blonde. My subject

has perfectly straight teeth and a few beauty marks on her face which are incredibly unique. She

is into fitness, working out and runs for her track team as well as her cross-country team. At

work she also is physically capable to moving umbrellas, chairs and running around all day

helping guests. She also must clean her surrounding areas which alone can be physically

exhausting. Physical activity is an important part of my subject's daily life. Her favorite gym

activities include the squat bar, stair master, and the lying leg curl. These help her with her cardio

and to keep her legs strong for all the running she does at practice and during meets. When you

first look at her, you may not think she would be highly involved in fitness and running but she is

someone not to compete with. According to “Mental Health and Fitness,” the 19 benefits of track

and field include, “maintaining a healthy body weight, creates healthy habits for your future,

better sleep patterns, better ability to multitask, increased memory, learning how to work well

with others, goals to work towards, balanced mood as well as behavior, improved motivation,

etc.” (Rawhide, 2016). Track and field and being active has benefits not only for your body but

for your mental health as well. It may be a difficult sport and tough to start off but the more you
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do it the better you will feel. In the textbook 'Psychology Applied to Teaching’ it states, “Most

students reach physical maturity and virtually all attain puberty. Although almost all girls reach

their ultimate height, some boys may continue to grow even after graduation from high

school...Approximately 16 percent of students considered to be overweight; 13 percent are

obese” (Snowman & McCown, 2015). Considering the data, my subject is in shape and doing

sports to the best of her ability all while maintains a good grade point average. She is physically

fit and takes care of herself by working out and eating right. She is doing the right amount of

physical activity to benefit her present and future self.

Emotional Development:

Children between the ages of 15-17 go through various stages of emotional development.

As a high a school student you tend to develop feelings and emotions for those of the opposite

sex or even those of the same sex. In high school you start to date and participate in sexual

activities. As for my subject who is a high school senior, she has started to develop these

emotions and feeling for the opposite sex. She has had interest in a few of her classmates which

proceeded into a relationship. She was in a relationship with someone for roughly 2 years and

had strong feelings for him. This is a part of the emotional development for high school students.

Trying to balance school, work, sports, and a relationship began to take a toll on her which

caused her to become incredibly stressed which turned into anxiety. According to the Child Mind

Institute, “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health disorders of childhood and

adolescence” (Child Mind Institute, 2017). High school students tend to have a lot on their plate

at an early age. They participate in sports and extracurricular activities while balancing their

daily school schedule, homework, family, work, and friends or even relationships. This may

cause children to become stressed to the point where anxiety may occur. The text states,
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“Depressed mood is primarily characterized by feelings of sadness or unhappiness, although

emotions such as anxiety, fear, guilt, anger, and contempt are frequently present...” (Snowman &

McCown, 2015). My child has been able to work through these emotions quite well at an early

age. She made the adult decision to put her priorities first and decided that school and sports

were the most important thing to her and decided she wanted to focus on that. Although she

works a few days a week, she was able to work out a more balanced schedule that will help her

become less stressed which has reduced her anxiety. Dealing with these feelings and emotions

can be difficult for someone her age. With the help of her friends and family she was able to

work through it and get back on track to focus on the bigger picture.

Philosophical Development:

Philosophical development is important in education for reasons being that

“philosophical foundation of curriculum helps determine the driving purpose of education, as

well as the roles of the various participants. While all foundations propose to set goals of

curriculum, philosophy presents the manner of thinking from which those goals are created”

(Guay, 2021). The student observed creates goals she hopes to accomplish and works as hard as

she can to achieve these goals. With college being around the corner she works to make sure she

achieves the best possible grades to receive scholarships and better opportunities. She hopes to

end her high school career with a 3.5 or above grade point average and works hard every day to

do so. Her goals for the end of high school are to graduate with an honors diploma, receive her

final varsity letter, and attend the award ceremony for all her academic achievements. She also

hopes to get into good schools that will recognize her academic success in which she can also

participate in sports. Her goals and achievements for her high school career have been

astounding. She understood what it took to get where she needed to be and put in challenging
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work and had the dedication needed to make it possible for her. According to ‘The Edvocate,’

“student-centered classroom may be less rigid or structured, less concerned about past teaching

practices and drilling academics, and more focused on training students for success in an ever-

changing world” (Lynch, 2016). The philosophical development for students is important when it

come to their future. Student based classes will help them to achieve their goals and succeed in

the future. As these students move onto higher education, having goals set and teachers who will

help them achieve their goals will set them up for a lifetime of success.

Social Development:

Social development is important part of a high schoolers career. This is when kids ages

14-18 start making more friends, playing sports, become more socially active with their teachers

and families. Social development in high school could also correlate to going to parties and

outings that friends may have. Children get to experience football games, basketball games and

other sport related events in which they like. According to the article, ‘High School Tips: Social

and Emotional Development,’ “...normal adolescent development often revolves around joining

cliques, wanting to join cliques, or being excluded from cliques. Cliques can have a strong

positive effect on self-worth" (Mendal, 2005). My child does have a few cliques in which she

socializes with. She has her classmates, her normal friend group, and the friends she hangout out

with that she met through her sports teams. She has friends of different ages and ethnical

backgrounds in which she gets along with very well. My child is extremely outgoing and social.

She loves meeting new people and socializing with anyone she meets. When it comes to being

social, she understands when she needs to be herself and when she needs to be professional. She

is great at communicating and knows all the right things to say at the right times. There are 5

social development goals that students can achieve. According to Arkansas State University,
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“Self-awareness, self-control, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision

making” (ASU, 2017). This can benefit students in the future when it comes to being socially

active in their career or jobs they may have where interacting with customers is necessary.

Having the proper communication skills will help these children to be more successful later in

life whether it is with family, friends, relationships, jobs, etc.

Intellectual Development:

High school students from ages 14-18 are on the later stages of intellectual development because

of their age and how well they can think and make reasonable decisions. This is when these

students start to make more adult like decisions for their future what they think is right or wrong.

The text states, “These students are more likely than younger students to grasp relationships,

mentally plan a course of action before proceeding, and test hypotheses systematically”

(Snowman & McCown, 2015). With students transitioning from children into young adults there

are many things that play a factor when decision making. Students may know the difference

between right and wrong but may still let their friends or own personal thoughts and behaviors

sway them a separate way (Healthwise staff, 2020). My child has had times where she has made

some right and wrong decisions but as a high schooler this is normal. The few bad decisions she

had to face also taught her what is important in life and what is important to her future. On very

few occasions my child had an important exam for one of her classes that she needed to study all

weekend for. The more she studied the more her friends thought she needed a break and

convinced her to go to party with them. After a while she finally agreed to go for a little while so

that way, she was still able to wake up early and start studying again. They ended up staying out

all night until sunrise and when she got home, she fell asleep for most of the day. When she

woke up in the late afternoon, she tried studying but it was not to the best of her ability. On the
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Monday of her exam, she hoped for the best and ended up not doing good on it. From then on,

she knew that if she kept doing that then her grades would start to drop and that is not something

she wanted to do with college around the corner. The. Next time she had an exam she made sure

that all her focus was centered towards passing her exam and when she took it, she scored a low

A which brought her grade back up. This is a fitting example of decision making as well as how

to learn from it. Making the adult like decisions will benefit her in the future when it comes time

to picking a school for college and other important things.

Recommendations for teachers and parents:

Recommendations that teachers and parents should consider as far as emotional

development would be to pay attention to details of your kids and students. Understand certain

changes you may see and act on it. Many children face depression and anxiety and teachers or

even parent may not recognize it. Without understanding the signs or signals, this could increase

rate of suicide for their children. Some of these signs may include panic, dread, restlessness,

feeling on edge, difficulty controlling worry or fear (Healthline, 2005-2021). For teachers it is

especially important to recognize the good achievements of their students and show them that

their demanding work is paying off. Other recommendations for parents with children in high

school could be being more present in their day-to-day life and understanding when they might

be making a wring decision. Give them guidance and try to be understanding rather than get

angry with them. There will be many instances where students will choose wrong over right and

it is important that you help them learn from their mistake and help them to do better in the

future. Students will be more willing to open and talk to their parents about when they made a

mistake and ask for advice on how to fix the situation, they are in.
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Graph:
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