Application of Principles of Child Development

Child Development

In observing Toby, age 5, his verbalizations, vocabulary, language, emotional state, and cognitive development are fully intact for his age group. As I observe his play time, he is at the family computer viewing web sites such as nickjr.com and pbskids.com. He knows and understands how to access these web sites and their interactive games that teach language skills, mathematical skills and social skills. Toby understands how to use the keyboard and mouse properly. By observing him, it is easily assumed that he is very sociable with other children because he answers the questions that the games are asking him out loud. Plus, he pulls his five-month-old sister closer to him while she is in her stroller watching him. I also observed that his cognitive development is appropriate for his age group because he is curious about science and likes to explore new things. Therefore, I feel that Toby's verbalizations, vocabulary, language, emotional state, and cognitive development are fully developed for his age group.

Furthermore, Toby shows excellent verbal skills interacting with the internet nickjr game when it asked him how many blue balls are there. He answered out loud, there are four blur balls before clicking on the icon number four on the computer screen. His mother comes in from the kitchen and asks him, which game are you playing, Toby. He replies by saying I am playing Dora the Explorer and he smiles. His sentence structure and vocabulary are in the right complexity for a five-year as it can be seen from the following.

"Five-year-olds' language continues to grow, and their vocabularies are expanding to 5,000 to 8,000 words. The number of words in sentences is increasing, and sentence structure is becoming more complex. As a result of adult feedback, five-year-olds begin decreasing their use of overextensions of rules for verbs and plurals, frequently correcting their own errors. Remarking about his trip to the beach, Seth said, "I put my foots, I mean feet, in the water, and it was cold." Five-year-olds are also using pronouns correctly. Seth used "I" to identify himself instead of using his name or the pronoun "you," which is used by others to identify him" (Wasik).

From there, according to Toby's mother, Toby's language skills fell behind before he was three and a half years old. He said very few words, almost non-verbal until that age. Therefore, Toby has caught up with his verbalization, vocabulary, language skills within his age group even though it was a slow development for him.

As I observed, I noticed his fine motor skills were well developed with one exception. He has the habit of gripping his pencil with the palm of his hand by making a fist instead of placing it in between his thumb and index finger. Other than that, Toby is able to string beads together, which shows great fine motor skills. Along with that, while I was observing his fine motor skills, I noticed that he smiles when he is happy and frowns when he is frustrated or sad. Furthermore, he is able to identify his emotions by having the correct facial expression for each emotion he expressed. In other words, Toby is a well adjusted five-year-old preschooler that has strong language skills and emotional state for his age group.

Along with strong language ski8lls, Toby's cognitive development is right on target for a five-year-old. As I observed him, he asked his mother to help him with the kid's chemistry set so that he could see how things mixed together and what would happen when those things were mixed. He also wanted his mother to help him sort his blocks in groups of colors. For example, one group would be his blue blocks and another coup would be his red blocks. Then, he wanted to cook a hotdog by himself in the family microwave. This shows great cognitive development because he wanted to cook and explore (Early Learning).

"Five-year-olds are interested in sorting and grouping (Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 1992). They can successfully sort objects on the basis of a single feature, such as color, shape, and size. Sorting things on the basis of more abstract concepts, such as an object's use, is more challenging. Kim proudly showed her teacher how she sorted all the beads into different color groups. When asked to sort all the toys in the dramatic play area that could be used in the kitchen, the group included spoons, artificial foods, as well as a doll and teddy bear. Kim explained that she frequently played with her doll and teddy in her kitchen at home" (Wasik, Cognitive Development in Preschooler).