Individual Difference Student Profile Rhoeta Murray Instructor: Dr. Tracey Meyerhoeffer EDUC 205: Development/Individual Differences Spring 2012
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Individual Differences Student Profile There appears to be a current epidemic of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). According to the National Institute of Mental Health AD/HD [s]ymptons include difficulty staying focused and paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity (National Institute of Health). Because numerous school-aged children suffer from AD/HD, I chose to profile a child diagnosed with it. I will provide general information and my observations of the student pertaining to her physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development. Last, I will summarize my findings and the implications they have in the classroom. General Information Laura is eight years and four months old, female, and Caucasian. She lives with her parents, sister-aged 17, sister-aged 14, and brother-aged 13. She is the youngest child in her family. Her grandmother picks her up and drives her to school every day. She arrives at the Idaho public school she attends at 8:00 A.M. to eat breakfast, than she attends a mainstream second grade with her classmates from 8:20 A.M. to 3:12 P.M. She does not have any special needs classes available to her. Lauras parents pick her up every day and usually receive a daily face-to-face progress report from her teacher. Their family then takes her and her siblings home. She takes daily medication to reduce the AD/HD symptoms. Neither Laura nor her siblings participate in any extracurricular activities after school. Her family spends the evenings doing homework, eating dinner, and watching television. Physical Development Laura has green eyes, brown hair, and is Caucasian. She does not have any visible distinguishing birthmarks or scars. She is slender like the majority of her classmates and IDP3
average height. Her vision, hearing, and overall health are good. She receives nutritious meals and is physically active. Her work is precisely and methodically written with her right hand. She is capable of fine motor skills using a variety of school utensils. During recess, Laura uses her gross motor skills as she actively climbs, runs, slides, and flips on the playground equipment. Cognitive Development Laura is extremely conscientious about the condition of her completed work, especially her penmanship. She prides herself on her knowledge and enjoys being correct. In reading, she is placed at an advanced level and exceeds her reading goals as she is skilled with word- decoding, the ability to sound out new words, and comprehension. Mathematic concepts like reversibility, the ability to see the relationships between fact families and opposite symbols such as + and -, and seriation, the ability to arrange objects by size, also come readily to her as she reaches her learning mile-markers quickly. Additionally, she excels in other academic areas such as science and spelling. The area she does struggle with during class is the ability to complete assignments on time. It is a result of a variety of issues. These issues, which cause a delay of timely schoolwork completion, include concentration on handwriting perfection, her sensory issues with different fabrics and shoes, and her desire to prove she knows all things, relevant to the current subject or not. In spite of her misdirected focus during lessons, she catches up independently with assignments. It appears she can build new schema, which is the organization of her thoughts, through accommodation or adding to existing schema with assimilation by adding to her acquired knowledge even though she is diagnosed with AD/HD. According to Parsons et al. (2010), Laura is in Piagets third stage of development, the concrete operational stage. As her teacher taught a math lesson, each student was given a IDP4
variety of triangles and a sheet of geometric shapes. In the lesson, Laura had to fit the triangles, without overlapping them on top of each other, into the larger shapes on the sheet. She found a solution for every problem. During another mathematics lesson, she was being taught concepts of greater than and less than. Through most of the lesson she was focused on taking her shoes on and off and making her feet comfortable or writing her name perfectly. As she attended to her feet, the teacher related the math symbols of greater than and less than to a hungry alligator. Laura did not look up during this time or change her focus from her feet. Eventually she began the assignment. As she precisely drew in the math symbols to correctly answer the problems, she also added sharp teeth to the greater than and less than signs. Although it did not appear she was paying attention to the lesson, she did hear, learn, and add to her schema. Socio-emotional Development Laura values and desires interaction with friends. She sees every child as a possible friend and as interested in her. As defined by Parsons et al. (2010), Laura is fully engulfed in Elkinds adolescent egocentrism as she appears to want to be the best at everything and to have the final word of every conversation. She plays around and among other children but rarely plays with them. While she is amidst others, she primarily interacts with her imaginary audience. When a peer does attempt a conversation with her, it usually ends up in an argument. Laura desires interaction with adults too. She enjoys one on one contact and telling fantastic stories. Following directions is difficult for her until she completes the previous task. She talks louder than everyone else, even when she is talking to an adult. She seems to think increasing volume means importance and ensures being heard. She understands consequences, but she also understands adults usually offer warnings first. Her teacher has chosen to discipline the class with operant conditioning, which according to Parsons et al. (2010), was championed IDP5
by B.F. Skinner. The teacher disciplines the students with warning cards to teach the students to stop at the response of the card or there will be a consequence, which is the stimulus. Laura has learned to commit an infraction fully expecting no consequences until she repeats it for a third time. She appears to have issues with her self-esteem, so this may be the reason she feels she needs to one up every conversation. Yet, she feels everyone is interested in her, proving Laura has a positive self-concept. Laura knows she has AD/HD and often manipulates the situation and excuses her actions because of it. She proves she is intelligent, but she needs constant reassurance. Summary, Conclusion, and Implications Laura is a happy active child of good health and average physical maturation. Her self- absorption level is equal to other students development. She is different in other ways, such as her advanced academic placement and lack of empathy development. Because she lacks empathy skills, she has difficulty interacting with others. She has a lot to offer others because of her intelligence, but she does not communicate it well. According to Parsons et al. (2010), an adolescent develops her true identity between the ages of 12 and 18. As Laura ages, she will have difficulties during Eriksons 5th stage of psychosocial development of Identity versus Role-Confusion. Laura wants to be praised and heard, but does not reciprocate well. She should develop this skill with social interaction training utilizing communication and problems solving skills, this will help her socio-emotional development. If she doesnt, her teenage years may consist of isolation and verbal abuse from other students. IDP6
Her physical development is normal but her activity level is not. Because of her constant need to move, she should be placed at the back of the classroom so as not to disturb the other students learning. She also needs to be allowed to move in simple, established, and consistent boundaries. Lauras cognitive skills are the least of her challenges as she is of high intelligence but she still needs to work on completing assignments in a timely manner. As she proceeds through her education she will utilize computers more and this may help her to complete work more timely because she avoids hand writing and then erasing assignments. In conclusion, as teachers learn about and adapt teaching styles to students with AD/HD, it will create a positive learning environment for a student such as Laura to reach her academic potential.
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References Parsons, Hinson, Sardo-Brown (2010). Educational psychology; College of Southern Idaho, 45- 218. National Institute of Mental Health. (2012, March). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Web.