Alexa Pascucci

Professor Bridges

HD202: Toddler Case Study (13-24 months old)

11/17/20

First name of child: Ruthie

Age of child (in months): 14 months old
Weight of child: 23 lbs.
Percentile ranking for weight (based on the CDC growth chart): ~60th Percentile
Height/length of child: 30.5”
Percentile ranking for length (based on the CDC growth chart): 75th Percentile
Head circumference (if known): 18.25”

Physical Description

Ruthie is of above average height and weight for her age group (see: growth chart,

attached). She weighs 23 pounds, which lands between the 50th and 75th percentiles, probably

around the 60th percentile for her age group. This means that Ruthie is the same weight as, or

heavier than, 60% of the children her age. Ruthie is 30 ½ inches long, which is considered to be

in the 75th percentile for her age group. According to our textbook and the lessons that we had in

the modules of this class, being a few inches or pounds bigger or smaller than the average set of

data per age group is perfectly normal.

Ruthie is a Caucasian female. She has brown eyes and dark brown hair. Her body

proportions are average for a child her age. When she was younger, she had a couple rolls of fat

on her extremities, but these went away when she got older. When she is sitting up and standing,

Ruthie’s posture seems to be erect. Based on the fact that she doesn’t seem to have a frequent
runny nose, frequent coughing, sneezing, or ear infections (that we know of), Ruthie appears to

be a healthy toddler.

A child’s physical growth and overall health greatly impacts their ability to develop

cognitively, lingually, physically, emotionally and socially. The best way to see that a child is

growing and developing in a healthy way is to ensure that they are receiving proper nutrition,

exercise, and sleep, as well as making sure that they are growing up in a safe and loving

environment where they are encouraged to play, read, talk, and sing regularly. Healthy

development looks different for each child, based on their abilities, but meeting these needs can

help to be certain that toddlers- like Ruthie- are receiving all of the necessary factors to help

them succeed in development.

Physical/Motor Development and Skills

Fine motor skills involve strengthening the smaller muscles in the body such as hands

and fingers. They will be used down the track to grasp things, move the mouth and chew, write

with a pen or pencil and even fasten clothing. When Ruthie is 18 months old, she is sitting in her

high chair and coloring on a piece of paper with crayons. Ruthie uses her index finger and thumb

to select each crayon, but she uses her entire fist to hold the crayon and scribble on the paper.

She uses both hands to color, so it is unclear if she has developed a dominant hand yet. Later on,

at 21 months old, we see Ruthie coloring again, and now she has developed a dominant hand and

holds the pencil in the correct way, not with her entire fist. Another example of Ruthie’s fine

motor skill evolution can be seen at 20 months old when she is sitting in her high chair and

playing with Play Doh. Ruthie uses her thumb and middle fingers on both hands to hold two

small pieces of the purple Play Doh. Ruthie then presses the dough on the middle finger of her

left hand into the dough on the thumb of her right hand. This shows that she has mastered basic
fine motor skills and that she is able to do complex movements using only her fingers. In

addition to the fine motor skills that Ruthie possesses, she also develops gross motor skills as she

ages. Gross motor skills are larger movements that infants and toddlers make with their arms,

legs, feet or their entire body. These skills are important because they create a solid foundation

and offer a physicality the child will need as they grow to be able to walk, run, jump, and do

other physical activities. At 17 months old, Ruthie is attempting to carry three stuffed animals at

once. She seems to have a hard time carrying all of them in her little hands. Every time she picks

one animal up, she drops another. Eventually, she is able to hold all three animals, and she walks

away. This shows that she is able to multitask and use her arms to hold something, while also

walking around. In another observation at 19 months old, Ruthie steps and jumps on a piece of

bubble wrap that is on the floor. Each time she stomps, a bubble pops. Satisfied by the noise,

Ruthie continues to giggle and jump up and down. Jumping on the bubble wrap is a good way to

strengthen her gross motor skills, and if she were to hold the bubble wrap in her hands and pop

the bubbles with her fingers, it would be a great way to strengthen her fine motor skills. At 20

months old, we see her jump on a trampoline, which is yet another

After looking at the “Gross and Fine Motor Development Chart in the First Two Years”

on page 261 in the “Infants and Children” textbook, I have determined that Ruthie is right on

track with the majority of other children her age when it comes to meeting these motor skills

milestones. At 18 months old, Ruthie is able to scribble vigorously on a piece of paper.

According to the chart, these milestones typically happen between ten and twenty-one months

old. She is also able to jump in place at 19 months old, and we see this again at 20 months old

when she is playing on a trampoline. The chart provided states that jumping in place typically

happens between 17 and 30 months old, with the average being 23 months and 2 weeks of age.
For these reasons, Ruthie appears to be perfectly on track- and maybe even in ahead in some

areas- with meeting both fine and gross motor skills at the correct ages.

I believe that one of the biggest reasons why Ruthie is consistently meeting her

developmental milestones is because her mother is constantly encouraging her with age

appropriate toys and activities, such as Play Doh and coloring, to challenge her. Ruthie is often

presented with the opportunity to explore her home environment safely, while using her senses,

allowing her to grow on track with other children her age, physically. If Ruthie’s parents did not

present her with the opportunities and abilities to safely explore, she would most likely be behind

others her age when it comes to physical development and the development of motor skills.

Cognitive Development

Cognitive development refers to how children think, explore and figure things out. It is

the development of knowledge, skills, problem solving and dispositions, which help children to

think about and understand the world around them. Brain development is part of cognitive

development. Two developmentally appropriate practices or strategies for promoting learning in

toddlers are to expose the toddler to plenty of enriching books and puzzles, as well as answering

the child’s “why” questions. Another way to promote healthy cognitive development is to give

the child choices and prompt them to make a decision. These are easy and natural ways to get

your child thinking about their environment and strengthen their problem-solving abilities.

Ruthie showed curiosity and exploration when she was 20 months old when she and her

younger brother William are playing with the spring door stopper. They take turns hitting it and

watching it bounce back. This is just an everyday household item, so it is beneficial to Ruthie’s

cognitive development to allow her to play with it to figure out what it does. Ruthie and

William’s parents were observing their exploration of the door stop, however, to assure that their
fingers did not get caught in it. Ruthie showed that she understands object permanence when she

was 21 months old. Ruthie is playing with a toy car. She then takes a blanket that is laying

nearby and covers the toy. A couple of seconds later, she takes the blanket off and begins playing

with the toy again, showing that she has mastered the skill of object permanence, which is when

the child knows that an object still exists, even when it is not visible to them. Ruthie

demonstrates her problem-solving abilities when she is 20 months old. She is learning about the

different stages of a butterfly’s development and has a photo matching activity on the table in

front of her. Her mother asks her to match the picture of the chrysalis to the one on the board.

Ruthie looks between the picture in her hand and the six pictures on the board in front of her and

only hesitates for a moment before she is able to successfully match them. Matching games are

extremely beneficial for toddlers’ developing cognitive abilities because the identification of

patterns and similarity versus difference help children learn about problem-solving and early

representation. At 15 months of age, Ruthie showed concept formation in the form of make-

believe play. Ruthie holds a toy watermelon slice up to her ear and pretends that it is a cell

phone. She repeats “Hello?” a few times, mimicking what she has seen her parents do when they

are talking on their phones. Concepts are important to a range of cognitive tasks including

forming analogies, identifying objects, and making inferences. Concept formation at a young age

is often central to school performance in the future.

After looking at the “Cognitive Attainments of Infancy and Toddlerhood” chart on page

302 in the “Infants and Children” textbook, I have determined that Ruthie is somewhere between

on track and advanced in her cognitive abilities. Ruthie has mastered object permanence, which

is typical for a child between 18 months and two years of age. However, at only 15 months old,

Ruthie is already imitating her parents’ actions and beginning to use make-believe play. These
abilities are typically seen in children between 18 months and two years of age, making her

cognitively advanced. I am impressed with Ruthie’s cognitive ability at such a young age, and I

believe that many of her achievements can be attributed to how she was able to explore her

surroundings freely and safely while being supervised by a parent at home. Her parents also gave

her age-appropriate developmental toys, such as matching games, that helped with her cognitive

development.

Language Development

Language is an extremely important part of child development because it lays a

foundation for how the child will communicate, express their needs and desires, and interpret and

understand emotions. Communication supports thinking and problem solving, and it is also the

basis of how the child will create and maintain relationships when they are older. We got observe

Ruthie demonstrating her communication ability with adults when she was 19 months old.

Ruthie picked up a board book off the floor and handed it to her mother, repeating “Booty,

booty, booty”. Her mother helps her flip through the pages of the book until she reaches the page

that Ruthie wanted to see, which had an illustration of the backside of a child. Her mother then

asks her, “Where’s the booty?”, and Ruthie is able to point to it easily. Ruthie’s communication

ability with her peers can be seen when she is 18 months old. She is sitting in her high chair

across from her brother William. Ruthie babbles and “talks” to William, and he sits there and

looks at her, appearing to listen to what she has to say. Even though babbling is rarely

distinguishable words, it is important for toddlers to begin communicating with those close to

their own age because it allows them to gain learning experience from those they can identify

with. Receptive language is the ability to understand and comprehend language that a child

hears. Ruthie showed receptive language when she was 20 months old. She was sitting in a chair
and using a crayon to color on a pad of paper in her lap when she begins to color on the arm of

the chair. Her mother says “Ruthie, color on the paper!”, and Ruthie listens and goes back to

drawing her picture. A child’s ability to listen and follow directions relies on the child’s

receptive language skills. Productive language is the child’s ability to speak and produce

language. Ruthie shows her productive language skills when she was 20 months old and playing

with William and the spring door stopper. As they were playing, Ruthie turned to her mother,

and, pointing to her rear end, said “Poop”. Her mother then says, “Ruthie, did you poop? You did

poop, I can smell it and you just told me. I think you’re going to need to be potty trained.”. At

this, Ruthie begins to whimper. This is an example of productive language because Ruthie was

the one who initiated the conversation.

After looking at the “Milestones of Language Development During the First Two Years”

chart on page 335 in the “Infants and Children” textbook, I have determined that Ruthie is right

on track with her language milestones. According to the chart, between 18 and 24 months old,

toddlers should “have a spoken vocabulary that expands from 50 words to about 200-250

words”. They should also be able to combine two or more words to form short, simple sentences.

We see Ruthie’s vocabulary grow extensively throughout the observation period spanning her

toddler years.

I believe that Ruthie’s learning environment has impacted her language skills in many

ways. She is a very vocal toddler, and I think that that has much to do with growing up in a

household with multiple children. Ruthie is a middle child, and, even at almost two years old, she

is making sure that her voice is heard at home. I also think that her parents did a great job with

encouraging her communication ability, receptive language development, and productive

language development by asking her questions and reading to her often. These actions will help

Ruthie to strengthen her communication skills and expand her vocabulary.

Emotional Development

Emotional development is extremely important to children, and continues to be

important as one grows older. Children who understand emotions and express them easily are

more likely to have superior empathetic and social skills. This will help them to build meaningful

relationships with friends and family in the future. It is also important that children learn when

and how to express their emotions in an appropriate and healthy way. Judging based off of what

we watched in the videos, I believe that Ruthie has a healthy attachment to her mother. Signs of a

healthy attachment include looking to the parents to be comforted, the ability of delaying

gratification, responsive to discipline, and the child is confidently independent. Throughout our

observation videos, we witness Ruthie experience a variety of emotional states. Most of the time

she is happy, however we also witness sadness, irritability, and frustration from her. Ruthie also

shows signs of developing self-conscious emotions during her toddlerhood. When she is 18

months old, Ruthie is coloring at her high chair. As she colors, Ruthie states “Pretty”. She is

possessing pride in her work. Ruthie shows that she is able to regulate her emotions. One

example of this is when Ruthie is 18 months old and she is looking outside through the glass

door. She begins to whimper and whine as she looks out the window, but is easily comforted

when her mother asks her what is wrong. This not only shows her regulation of emotions, but

also shows that she has a variety of emotional states, and that the attachment style she has with

her mother is healthy because she was able to be easily comforted by her. Ruthie shows that she

is able to understand and respond to the emotions of others when she was 18 months old. Ruthie
and her brother William are sitting on the floor together and she keeps shaking her head back and

forth. She notices that this makes him smile and giggle, so she continues to do this.

After studying Mary Rothbart’s Model of Temperament on page 362 of the “Infants and

Toddlers” textbook, I have determined that Ruthie possesses a high level of effortful control.

Regarding Ruthie’s reactivity, she has age-appropriate gross motor skills, a high attention span,

and she appears to be wary about new situations at first, but then warms up quickly. She does not

appear to have any irritable distress, meaning that she does not have prolonged crying and

distress when her desires are frustrated. For the most part, Ruthie seems to express happiness and

pleasure quite frequently. As for her self-regulation, Ruthie appears to be able to voluntarily

suppress a dominant, reactive response in order to plan and execute a more adaptive response. It

seems that Ruthie is able to engage in self-soothing activities to keep her emotions in check.

Mary Rothbart’s Model of Temperament represents the three underlying components in the

definition of temperament: emotion, attention, and action. By studying these three components,

we can make an accurate assumption of Ruthie’s emotional development.

Temperament “refers to an individual's characteristic or habitual modes of behavioral and

emotional responding that are present at an early age and often believed to have some basis in

biological processes partly determined by heredity”. It is typically discernible at birth, and can be

influenced by ethnicity, gender, culture, and environment. In some studies, girls have

demonstrated higher levels of sociability and lower levels of sadness, anger, and impulsivity than

boys. Different ethnicities and cultures have also shown to have an effect of a child’s

temperament, with Asian-American babies being more easily consoled than Caucasian babies.

The way that a child has been raised- and their attachment style to their parents- can also

influence their temperament. Judging by Ruthie’s ethnicity, attachment style, gender, and home
environment, I can conclude that she is a relatively easy and happy child with a healthy

attachment to her parents.

Social Development

As children develop and become individuals, they also gain skills to communicate with

the other children and adults they come across. Social development most often refers to how a

child develops friendships and other relationships, as well how a child handles conflict with

peers. Social development is important because it can impact many of the other forms of

development that a child experiences. It helps them develop language skills, build self-esteem,

strengthen learning skills, resolve conflicts, and more. Even though we only observed Ruthie

through home videos, we were able to watch her interact with both adults and other children, as

her parents and older siblings were often seen in the videos as well. When Ruthie is 20 months

old, she is sitting in her high chair and calls out to her older brother Max. When he enters the

room, she waves at him and repeats “Hi! Hi! Hi!” until he responds “Hi, Ruth!” and waves back

at her. Ruthie also had non-verbal peer interactions with her siblings, such as when she was 21

months old and she is playing with the lids of different pots and pans on the kitchen floor with

her younger brother. She and William take turns banging the lids on the tile flooring to make

noise. At one point, Ruthie takes one of the lids that William was using and begins using it

before giving it back to him. Even though she didn’t talk while doing this, it was still a social

interaction. Ruthie showed signs of empathy at 19 months old when she and William are playing

with a handheld mirror. Ruthie is holding the mirror in her hands when she moves it away from

William, who was trying to see his reflection. He then squawks in protest and crawls to follow

her. Ruthie then moves the mirror towards William again. This shows empathy because she

knew that William would be upset if he was not able to see himself in the reflection. Social
referencing is when infants and toddlers read facial expressions and use the information to help

make decisions. Ruthie used social referencing when she was 18 months old and her mother

points to the baby (William) in her arms and asks “Who is this?”. Ruthie answers “Max”, and

Ruthie’s mother shakes her head. By shaking her head, Ruthie’s mother is silently letting Ruthie

know that she said the wrong name. Her mom then helps her by telling her that the baby is

William. Ruthie showed that she is able to comply with simple directives when she was 20

months old and she tried to color on the arm of the chair with her crayon. Her mother reminds

her not to do that by saying, “Ruthie, color on the paper!”. Ruthie listens to her directions and

stops coloring on the chair and only colors on the pad of paper in her lap. From what I observed,

Ruthie’s play style is very versatile. She repeatedly shows us that she is able to play well with

others when she interacts with her siblings, and we also see that she is able to be content in

playing by herself. An example of this is when she was 18 months old and sits down to play with

her baby doll by herself. She makes clicking noises with her tongue as she does this, which can

be viewed as a self-soothing technique.

I believe Ruthie’s social skills developed greatly throughout the semester. When we first

began observing her, she seemed to be a lot quieter and more reserved. As the months went on

and she grew older, Ruthie became more rambunctious, silly, and talkative. In the nine month

window where we observed her toddlerhood, Ruthie really came out of her shell. I think that it is

fair to attribute much of her social development to the home environment and upbringing. Ruthie

is the middle child of five children, and with so many interactive bodies in the household, Ruthie

is able to interact with people of many different ages all day. Without a doubt, growing up in this

type of home environment will strengthen her social skills and allow her to develop language

skills, work well with others, and problem solve.

Summary

Overall, I believe that Ruthie is developmentally on track in the majority of

developmental domains, and advanced in others. Ruthie is above the average height and weight

for her age, according to the measurements we were provided with. She is also meeting her

physical milestones and gross motor skills, such as jumping, ahead of the other children her age.

Her fine motor skills appear to be developing normally as well, with her being able to hold a

pencil properly in her dominant hand, as well as make meticulous and deliberate small

movements with her fingers. I believe that Ruthie is rather advanced cognitively, as she has

mastered object permanence, began imitating the actions of her parents and taking part in make-

believe play by just 15 months old. Ruthie met language milestones on track as well, displaying

her receptive language skills by listening to her mother’s commands and her productive language

skills by initiating conversation. She also has an extensive vocabulary by the time she is two

years old. Emotionally, Ruthie appears to be happy, silly, and talkative, and she seems to have a

secure attachment to her parents. Finally, Ruthie is able to have meaningful social interactions

with children and adults, as she is content with playing on her own, while also playing well with

others by taking turns and sharing.

I believe that Ruthie’s parents have been doing a phenomenal job so far when it comes to

providing her with age appropriate toys and activities to improve her development in every

domain. They are consistently providing her with opportunities to ask questions and engaging

her in educational games and activities that will be beneficial to her development. Ruthie’s

younger brother William is only ten months younger than she is, so he makes for a very effective

playmate who is close to her in age. In my opinion, if Ruthie’s parents continue to do what they

have been doing to encourage her development, including reading, playing with age-appropriate
toys, answering the questions that she has, and providing her with educational games- such as

matching games- Ruthie’s growth and maturation will continue to be enhanced and she will

remain on track with, or ahead of, other children her age, developmentally.