Naturalistic observation of child play behavior in life span development

Child Play Time Naturalistic Observation
Describe the setting and why you chose it.

The naturalistic observation approach is performed in a pre-school environment. The reason being that the environment allows the experiment to focus on the possibility of behavior of a child to be influenced by environmental factors or conditions, giving a comprehensive depiction of what occurs in classrooms in the case of preschool children. The following study gives a unique observational design and approach which allows numerous observations on a child for the purpose of examining the trends of behaviors both within and across classroom event settings and the manner in which they relate to a given child's gender and also basic tutor conducts (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

Discuss the age, gender, ethnicity and overall physical description of the child?

The observation was performed on a child of pre-school age, around five years of age who was a from a white-American ethnographic background. The participating child's sample was alike in family (that is, family income, maternal education and race) and the classroom (that is, teacher education and teacher age). Demographic features were not included in the study (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

iii. Discuss the play activities the child is doing. Give examples.

Some activities are discoursed through the following examples (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

a. In the case of peer interactions, the child devoted a significantly larger amount of their time in having social interaction at the time of play activities (for instance, play with their toys or imaginary play) compared to other activities.

b. Peer interaction transpired more often during free play compared to the more tutor-directed events. For task-related activities, the child was mainly inclined towards individually targeted relations than group-oriented tasks.

iv. Discuss the cognitive abilities the child is demonstrating. Give examples.

The cognitive behaviors that the child demonstrated are discussed as follows (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012), (Michael W. Eysenck, 2004).

a. The child possessed more sophisticated interactions with objects during activities which present a lot of cognitive demand from a child, for instance participating in goal-oriented problem-solving or methodical experimentation during the free choice situations.

b. From the observations made, there is a possibility that the child is likely to perform below par on a task simply because he lacked full understanding of what was required from them by the experimenter. A way of dealing with the problem involved allowing the experimenter to have flexibility when it comes to asking questions.

v. Discuss the psychosocial behaviors the child is demonstrating. Give examples.

In my opinion, lab researches or studies are artificial and so many researchers favor naturalistic observations in which day-to-day behavior is observed in a natural setting (Observational Research, 2005). Organization of event or activity settings, for example, free choice, large group, meals, etc. is mainly a classroom setting which teachers employ intentionally to schedule the child's time during preschool day, and it can have a key role in the manner the child develops, practice skills and effectively switch to elementary school level. In my case, too, the child seemed to have got used to the environment around him as he did not show any sign of abnormality or anxiety during the day of observation. I observed the child to be happy and normal while behaving with other children in the class room. The child was polite while interacting with the classroom instructors. (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

vi. Discuss the emotional behaviors the child is demonstrating. Give examples.

The environment chosen provided the child who I was observing an opportunity to achieve with contentment and to move over any past upsets. The child was thoughtful while being alone on certain occasions. The child brought out his inner feelings of expressing happiness while utilizing his playtime. While getting along with others, too, the child let out any socially unacceptable impulses and emotions. In general, I could summarize the situation as a chance for the child to practice, make-believe and distort reality to satisfy his needs (Elizabeth A. Holmes, 2001).

vii. Speculate about the temperament of the child (from what you observed) and give examples. What do you hypothesize about his/her attachment type is regarding his/her caregiver? What Erikson stage of development do you think your observed child is in and why?

Within any child group, individual differences caused by aspects such as temperament, level of ability and personality may affect the outcome. For instance, the child seemed withdrawn while involved in situations where he could not express his unwillingness to be part of certain games (Elizabeth A. Holmes, 2001). During a game, the child was focusing on one specific toy to which the he has become strongly attached which is a usual thing. In this case, attachment means looking for comfort from a certain object, like a normally growing child who is of the same age turning to their parent when they are unhappy (Elizabeth A. Holmes, 2001). Erikson development stage: Purpose: guilt vs. initiative (locomotor-genital, kindergarten, 4 -- 5 years) ( Saul Mcleod, 2013).

Please describe the normal behavior of the child you are observing. Use your knowledge from course work, textbooks, lectures and personal experiences to identify and describe any behavioral patterns you notice. Give examples. Do you observe any unusual or out of the normal behavior pattern interactions when compared to normal behaviors?

One way to deal with behaviors of the child and the environment in his classrooms is by observations. Observational methods, which center on the responses of the child to situational needs, help researchers in evaluating how children adjust their behavior while interacting in classrooms overtime instead of defining competence with regard to the absence or presence of a particular, withdrawn behavior. My research therefore examines the classroom setting by observing interactions between the child and his peers, tasks and teachers during many routines throughout their school days as well as getting information regarding the activities in their classrooms which may differ from time to time. As the environment was already familiar for the child whom I observed, there was no unusual behavior expressed on the day (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

viii. When the child attempts to get the attention, describe how the caregiver(s) responds. Give examples. Describe any discipline interactions. Give examples.

It seems that the most frequent interactions the child made with the teachers were during teacher-structures, whole-group time. The child interacted with peers more often in his free games than they during activities directed by their teachers (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

ix. Describe the overall functioning level of the child? Give examples.

The child's developmental settings are surrounded by a chain of proximal interactions, like with teachers and peers who are nested in bigger systems such as school and the classroom. The child was very normal with a very active lifestyle throughout the observation period. He was occupied either with activities or on his own thoughts throughout. The functional level could be termed as, 'active and helathy' (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012). The teachers could have involved themselves more in the child's play than usual, since they knew they were being observed. Responses to questionnaires and interviews may have been inspired by some social appeal bias. (Elizabeth A. Holmes, 2001).

x. What was your experience of the observation assignment?

As the field of early childhood teaching works towards creating a better understanding of the learning of preschool children, my research shows that there is need for a wider scope of the work in order to accommodate more ecological assessments of a child's interactions and behavior. Results of the recent research show differences in the behavior of children at the micro level during activities and in classrooms, emphasizing on the need to consider the setting of classroom activity in the attempt to comprehend the development of children (Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello, 2012).

References

Saul Mcleod. (2013). Developemntal Psychology. Simply Psychology.

Elizabeth A. Holmes. (2001). A Naturalistic Observation of the Play Behaviour of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. THe Emancipated Autism Project - Research Library.

Leslie M. Booren, Jason T. Downer, & Virginia E. Vitiello. (2012). Observations of Children's Interactions with Teachers, Peers, and Tasks across Preschool Classroom Activity Settings. Early education and development, 517-538.

Michael W. Eysenck. (2004). Examining behaviour by watching it take place naturally. Psychology Press Ltd.

Observational Research. (2005, May 27). Retrieved from FDA: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/05p0224/05p-0224-cp00001-Exhibit-18-Observational-Research-vol1.pdf