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Running head: CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Child Development
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation

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CHILD DEVELOPMENT

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Child Development

Colbie and Leyton, age eight, and Leyton, age five, are heath and Mariel's children.
Although they do not have any specific conditions, they have a slow development rate; thus, they
struggle with basic activities which their age mates can already participate in comfortably
(Adams, 2019). Heath and Mariel are very caring parents despite the demanding nature of their
jobs and ensure they dedicate all the necessary time to their children to ensure their wellbeing.
Heath works as the head of transportation in the Olmsted school district, while Mariel works as a
teacher. Both their professions, while being demanding, allow them to provide the necessary care
for their children. Their parents, not wanting to be moving from hospital to hospital constantly,
have taken the role of caregivers constantly finding ways to assist the children in coping with
their life and living like other kids. However, they face several challenges, such as the inability
to communicate with the children. Colbie has a slow developmental process and is unable to take
care of herself and therefore requires constant attention to ensure her wellbeing
The children display interest in various activities, despite having slow developmental
progress. Colbie shows interest in classical music, and it greatly assists in calming her down. She
enjoys listening to classical music, and her parents use the music to make her relax whenever
they cannot understand what she wants (Adams, 2019). Leyton displays interest in watching
various shows and appears to be mesmerized while watching humpy dumpty. The development
of Leyton's eyes enables him to communicate with his parents using a visually guided machine,
giving him various options. However, due to their slow development, both children are still
learning the sense of touch and show curiosity in touching various items around the house and at
school. Leyton also participates in activities such as swimming which improves his muscles.
Unlike Colbie, Leyton has leg coordination and can walk, albeit slowly and with a walker.

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Colbie is, however, unable to straighten her knees at all and thus cannot walk despite not having
any bone condition.
Assessment of Colbie’s Development
To assess a child's development, one can assess the different domains of development in
a child. The domains of development include physical domain, self-help, cognitive, socialemotional, and language (Ontario Ministry of Education, n.d.). In terms of Physical
development, Colbie's strengths include moving the arms, thus exercising a little gross motor
skill. However, Colbie has good fine motor skills and can draw perfectly. Although initially,
Colbie is unable to hold objects, mostly throwing them randomly as time progresses, she is
improving her abilities in holding objects and can hold onto objects with more stability (Adams,
2019). The main physical challenge Colbie faces is the inability to move her lower torso. Colbie
cannot move her knees and legs and thus cannot walk despite numerous efforts by her parents to
encourage her to walk. Although Colbie is unable to walk and is mainly placed in a wheelchair,
I would like to know how developed her leg muscles are and if they can support her to start
walking.
Another aspect of development is self-help. Children need to develop self-help skills to
function effectively, even in the absence of their parents. Some of the self-help skills include
self-feeding, dressing up on their own, and serving their food. Colbie has no strength in terms of
self-help and cannot conduct most of the activities on her own (Adams, 2019). Self-help skills
usually require a combination of using both fine and gross motor skills. Since Colbie is yet to
develop her fine and gross motor skills fully, she cannot conduct any self-help activities. Her
parents, therefore, have to assist her with self-help activities like dressing up and eating. Colbie
also depends on her parents for basic activities such as going to the washroom due to her

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inability to move. Although the x-rays do not show any significant deformation in her bone
structure, she struggles with most movements.
Cognitive skills are essential in a child's development as they enable them to react to
different environmental changes. Colbie's strength n cognitive development is auditory
responses. Colbie can listen and react to changes in her environment (Adams, 2019). Although
she cannot talk, her responses in processing various items in her environment are vital during
growth. Colby also has good long-term memory as she smiles whenever her parents come back
from work. The ability to recognize her parents shows that her cognitive development is okay. A
skill emerging in terms of Colbie's cognitive development is her ability to pay attention.
Although initially unable to pay attention to anything. Colbie is slowly increasing her attention
span and can focus on a person for a little longer. However, her most significant difficulty comes
in terms of reasoning and logic. Colbie does not display the ability to process information; hence
learning is slower for her than her agemates.
Social-emotional development is critical as it enables the child to understand herself and
interact with society. Children who lack social-emotional skills don't fit well into society and
struggle with activities like making friends (Mendelsohn et al., 2018). Colbie's social-emotional
development strengths include her ability to display a range of emotions and identify the cause of
the emotion. Although she cannot communicate with her parents about how she feels, Colbie
displays excitement when she sees them. She displays happiness whenever she is tickled and
displays feelings of sadness whenever she does not feel okay. She has no emerging skills in
terms of social-emotional development but has not regressed in any way. However, Colbie does
have difficulties interacting with other children. Her inability to talk to the other children limits
her interaction with them; hence they cannot create a stable friendship.

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Language development skills are essential as they help the child communicate with the
rest of the world (Habibi et al., 2018). The lack of ability to communicate limits several
activities, such as the level of interaction between a child and peers or parents. Colbie's strength
in terms of language development is in listening to music (Adams, 2019). Colbie listens to music
for most of her day as it helps calm her down. However, she listens mostly to classical music,
which primarily focuses on beats. She will eventually be able to pick up some language elements
from the music. Colbie does not have any emerging language skills as she struggles with
coordinating her tongue muscle. Colbie, however, experiences difficulties in talking and uttering
any words. Although she sometimes tries to peak out words, she has had no success in uttering
any word. The slow development of her language skills makes it more challenging to
communicate with her parents; hence they have to guess what might be disturbing her
continually.
Goals and Next Step
In terms of physical development, there are goals the parents can set to assess Colbie's
development. The parents can give the child exercises that will enable the child's gross motor
skills development (Ontario Ministry of Education, n.d.). The exercise will refine Colbie's use of
her arms and enable her to use her arms more effectively. The parents can also develop writing
exercises to refine Colbie's fine motor skills. The numerous practices will enable Colbie to use
her muscles more effectively in holding objects over a long period.
To develop Colbie's cognitive abilities, her parents can engage her in various activities
that improve her reasoning capabilities and ability to use logic. An example of such an activity is
reading her interesting stories frequently. Reading her interesting stories will force her to
increase her attention span and processing capability to understand the story. Her reactions to the

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story can also assess whether she understands what is happening in the story. The parents can
also point out shapes and colors to improve her ability to process different objects. Therefore,
whenever she sees an object, she will be able to use logic to identify its shape and color
There is various exercise the parents can use to develop Colbie's language skills.
However, before developing language skills, the parents have to encourage Colbie to try to talk
(Mendelsohn et al., 2018). Therefore, they can talk to her regularly to encourage her to talk back.
Giving her ample opportunity to reply also ensures she struggles to communicate and thus adapts
using speech as a communication tool. Playing audiobooks ad more worded songs will also
increase her exposure to new words, thus enabling her to develop language skills faster.
Strategies for Educators.
There are several strategies educators can use to ensure the child passes the grade they
are in currently. One o the strategies is talking to the child on a personal level during classes. By
emphasizing the child's child, the educator will encourage the child to pay more attention to what
is being taught in class (Lucas et al., 2017). The educator can also include the child in more
activities that she can actively participate. Taking into consideration of Colbie's developmental
shortcomings is essential for any educator. The educator should thus engage Colbie in more
activities she can participate in actively. Another activity the educator can use to enable the child
to pass the grade is developing specialized exercises which enable the educator to assess the
child's development. The activities will increase the learning pace hence enabling Colbie to pass
the grade.
Self-Reflection
Observation is an effective method for collecting information from the family to assess
the child's developmental process. Observation will enable a researcher to assess the household's

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different occurrences, thus identifying Colbie's strengths in different domains. The researcher
can also assist in various activities, such as assisting Colbie in self-care. Participation in this
activity will give the researcher a clear picture of Colbie's capabilities. The researcher can also
go with Colbie and her parents to the hospital if they are comfortable with the idea. The
researcher can then directly understand the medical situation Colbie is facing and identify the
best ways to ensure she can develop other aspects of her life.

References
Adams, D. (2019). The unconditional [Video]. https://vimeo.com/335035127

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Habibi, A., Damasio, A., Ilari, B., Elliott Sachs, M., & Damasio, H. (2018). Music training and
child development: A review of recent findings from a longitudinal study. Annals of the
New York Academy of Sciences, 1423(1), 73-81. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13606
Lucas, J. E., Richter, L. M., & Daelmans, B. (2017). Care for child development: An
intervention in support of responsive caregiving and early child development. Child:
Care, Health and Development, 44(1), 41-49. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12544
Mendelsohn, A. L., Cates, C. B., Weisleder, A., Berkule Johnson, S., Seery, A. M.,
Canfield, C. F., & Dreyer, B. P. (2018). Reading aloud, play, and social-emotional
development. Pediatrics, 141(5), e20173393. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.20173393
Ontario Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Ontario child care
providers. https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/ChildCareProviders.html#homeba
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TITLE: Child Development
THESIS: Colbie has a slow developmental process and is unable to take care of herself and
therefore requires constant attention to ensure her wellbeing
I.

Introduction
A. Family background
B. THESIS: Colbie has a slow developmental process and is unable to take care of
herself and therefore requires constant attention to ensure her wellbeing

II.

Childs interests and activities
A. Listening to music
B. Swimming

III.

Child’s development in different domains
A. Physical
1) Colbie has little gross and fine motor skills
2) Colbie s able to coordinate her arms
3) Colbie is unable to move or coordinate her torso and legs
B. Self-help
1) Colbie has no self-help skills
2) Colbie is entirely dependent on her parents for self-help activities
C. Cognitive
1) Colbie can process auditory information
2) Colbie has good long term memory
3) Colbie has an improving attention span

4) Colbie has difficulties in logic and reasoning hence finds it difficult to learn
things

D. Social-emotional
1) Colbie can display various emotions
2) Colbie can react to the different emotional stimulation
3) Colbie has difficulties with social interactions
E. Language
1) Colbie’s love for music
2) Colbie’s inability to talk is a hindrance to the development of language
IV.

Goals and next step
A. Physical
1) Include exercises to refine existing gross motor skills
2) Writing practices to refine fine motor skills
B. Cognitive
1) Read her stories to enhance child’s processing capabilities
2) Point out shapes and colors to improve cognitive abilities
C. Language
1) Talk to her regularly
2) Play audiobooks and more worded song...