Sunday, July 25, 2010

Case Study

Developmental Information

· Student: M. M.

· Class: English

· Grade Level: 11th grade

· School: Liceo Cervantes

In this document you will find the description of M’s developmental domains development. Also, you will learn about this student: About her context and development. After the description of each domain and how developed it is, you will find a brief description of the actions to take place in order to help her develop the underdeveloped domains.

M is a more or less developed student because she has reached an age in which most of her domains should be developed successfully. M is seventeen at the moment and is currently in 11th grade in the public school Liceo Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra located in Agustinas. M should be located in the Formal Operational Stage because she has developed her domains and is no longer located in the Concrete Operational Stage. I have observed her and she proves to be developing herself in the Formal Operational Stage. Some of her domains are more developed than others as you will note in the following description. I have found out that she has not been diagnosed with any type of learning disorder or any developmental domain problem.

In this report, I will be using the stage of the Formal Operational and the SPICE model for the developmental domains. The SPICE domains are: Social, Physical, Intellectual, Creative and Emotional.

Social Domain

It is easy to observe that M has some difficulties when dealing with other people especially male classmates. M can sometimes become really aggressive when they bother her which shows that she has not entirely developed her sense of identity. She has neither developed the understanding of her emotions and feelings. It is hard for her to understand her feelings and demonstrate them positively or even control them. Therefore, when she is being bothered, she does not control her anger and lets it all out. Hence, my only attention is on the social developmental domain. It was easy to observe that this domain has not been fully developed and there is still plenty of work to do. However, she does keep healthy relationships with most of her female classmates and seems to have no problem in dealing with teachers or other members of the school.

Physical Domain

M has successfully developed her fine and gross motor skills. I have proof of that after reading several pieces of homework where I could see that she did not have any problems with her handwriting. I have been able to observe her movements and she does not look floppy or uncoordinated either. Besides, I have known that M has been practicing dance for many years with one good friend and classmate. Therefore, her physical development has been developed completely. Moreover, she does keep a positive attitude towards health issues which proves that she has successfully developed the physical domain. Besides, M can see and hear well.

Intellectual

M seems to have no problems in the development of the intellectual domain. I have been able to look at the class register book and she does not have any problem in any subject. The main problem I have observed in this domain is the short concentration span. However, I might say that the reason for this is that she has an underdeveloped concentration span, but with what I have been able to observe I think that she gets discouraged or disconnected from the class because the activities are not interesting or because she has other things in her mind such as: Relationships, family or economic concerns. In the language aspect she has acquired sufficient vocabulary to relate to people in both informal and formal situations. She also shows different forms of communication using both verbal and non-verbal language.

Creative

As mentioned previously, I have been able to observe that M is very creative and artistic. She dances for a few years now and she is able to express her feelings with the dance. Also, I have been able to observe some of her works for the art class and they are very subtle and expressing plenty of who she is. I think that she is already developed in this domain.

Emotional

Although this is extremely connected to the social domain, the emotional domain also deals with the development of self-awareness and self-confidence. In this aspect, I think that M needs help to complete her development. She is not so aware of who she is and many times that interferes with her social domain development. Also, she has some difficulties for understanding her feelings and emotions and this as well interferes with her relationships with classmates.

As described in this report, M’s biggest problems with development are in the social and emotional domains. They are intertwined and they affect mutually to the development of the other. Therefore, the main emphasis is to work on these domains to help her in her development. The main aspect to work on right now is self-control. As a first step I need to help her become aware of her circumstances, feelings and place she takes inside the classroom. Marshall and Stern state that “self-awareness is the process of focusing attention on one’s thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors in order to understand what they are, where they come from, and what they mean” (2004). For that, I have to help her becoming aware by asking the right questions when a situation arises. For example, if M hits a classmate after he said something to her I should be able to ask her questions such as: How did you feel when he said it? How did you feel when you hit him? What else could you have done instead of hitting him? Do you think you can talk to your classmate and sincerely ask him not to bother you anymore? Why? A second step is to help her define her feelings and emotions. Many times adolescents react wrongly because they do not what they feel. Therefore, certain questions such as: I feel guilty when…, I hate it when…, I feel overwhelmed when…, I feel relaxed when…, I feel upset so I…, and many other statements that students need to complete, will become an exploration of M’s feeling and emotions and she will realize what feelings arise under different circumstances.

The intervention will continue by preparing different meetings with M in which I will use some input such as: Poems, videos, short stories and others. After working with the input, several questions will be asked, mostly problem solving questions, so that M can identify herself with the characters and with the situation and she can find solutions to the situations and start using them in her own life.

References

Borgen, William and Amundson, Norman. Models of Adolescent Transition. Child Development Institute. http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/teens_stages.shtml

Marshall, Claudia and Stern, Robin. Understanding Emotions in the Classroom. New York: DUDE Publishing, 2004.

Papalia, Diane, Wendkos, Sally. Psicología. Mexico DF: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Wikipedia. “Early childhood education”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_childhood_education

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