1

Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

Major Observation of and Interaction with a Child:

Paige
By: Ashley R. Fajkus
I observed Paige on November 15, 2014. Paige is an eleven year old
female. She is in the sixth grade and is quite spunky (the word her mother
always uses for her) for her age. You cant help but smile whenever you see
Paige, as she is quite pint sized for her age. She is four foot nine inches AND
THREE QUARTERS (she wont let you forget those of an inch). Do not let
her pixie size fool you though, she has all the sass in the world, but it is
completely adorable. On the day that I spent with Paige it was incredibly
beautiful so I knew that I wanted to spend as much time outside with her
that I could. Paige loves being outside too so I knew she would be perfectly
okay with this. After pulling into her driveway I parked my car and went
inside their house, which has the highest of ceilings I could ever imagine. Her
mom greeted me as I walked in their kitchen with a giant hug and kiss on my
forehead. Paiges family and my family are incredibly close. I could hear
Paige yelling from the other room asking her mom for some Motts Tots, a
certain brand/ type of apple juice that is her favorite. Im guessing she hadnt
realized that I had come inside the house so I decided to surprise her and
walked into her bedroom with her juice box. She got incredibly excited and
started jumping on her bright blue polka-dotted bed. I explained to her that I
was going to be having a girly girls day with her. She got so excited
whenever I told her this that she squeezed her juice box a little too hard and

2
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

spilled it on herself. She went to change her shirt, from a pink, fully sequined
tank top into a Taylor Swift tee shirt. Taylor Swift and she are best friends
and she knows every single word to every single song.
To start off the observation, I wanted to test how she would react to the
variations of accommodation and assimilation. I first showed her a picture of

3
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

a chicken.

4
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

I asked her to tell me what this was a picture, and like I expected, she told
me that it was a chicken. I asked her how she knew that this was a chicken
and she told me, Because it looks like Popos little Nacho, and it has wings,
and looks like it would make that chicken sound that you see in movies.
Nacho is the name of one of her Grandfathers many chickens that he has.
Next, I showed her a picture of a guinea fowl, a different type of chicken. I

5
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

asked her what she s

I asked her what she saw and she got this really big quizzical look on her
face. I asked her what she was thinking and she was just really quiet and

6
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

wouldnt respond. She then looked at me and told me, well it has spots on
it, and two legs, and and a bird beak and then just got really quiet
again. I asked her if she wanted me to tell her what it was and she just got
this really sassy look on her face as if to tell me not to give away what it was
just yet. After waiting for a little bit, she finally asked me what it was and
whenever I told her that it was a variation of the kind of chicken in the first
picture, she immediately looked at me and said, No way Jose! That is not a
chicken, its polka-dotty and isnt red colored. I told her that not all chickens
are red and she then explained to me that they are because Popos are.
Thats whenever it clicked with me that the only chickens that she had ever
truly been exposed to where the ones at her grandparents house. So
because she had never had that experience with chickens that were colored
red, she hadnt known any different.
For the next part of the observation I took Paige outside in their
backyard and was going to test zone of proximal development, scaffolding,
and private speech with her through a hobby of mine, knitting. I told her
what we were going to be doing and you could see the look on her face was
one of both excitement and nervousness. I have her knitting needles and let
her choose between pink and blue yarn. As I expected she chose the bright
blue one, as thats her favorite color. Before we started I told her that I
wanted to tell me what she was thinking the entire time as we were going to
go through the process. She said okay and we began. I started with a basic

7
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

cast on (the first step in knitting, putting your starters for each stitch youll
make). She got extremely confused right from the start with it. I had to
explain multiple times what to do for her, and after her trying five or six
times, and complaining the entire time because I cant do it as good as you
can, she gave up and handed her needles and yarn to me and asked me to
do it for her. I asked her why she gave up and I was told, because I cant do
it and it makes me feel not good inside. I did the cast on-s for her then and
then started to try and teach her how to do a basic stitch. She had some
more trouble with it, and the fact that she was already testy didnt help her
view on this not so fun activity anymore. I asked her if she needed some
help, as I could see was once again struggling and was told no Im okay I
can do it on my own like you. You could see it in her face that this was
starting to become somewhat of a competition for her to try and do it on her
own since I could. Finally after struggling long enough for herself, she asked
me to use her hands and do it with her so she could do it. After we did about
five stitches you could see her mood completely start to change. She went
from a pouty eleven year old to the bright little girl she was just by that little
time of doing it on her own. After those five where done, she did a little
happy dance to herself and asked if we could go to something else now.
Third I tested her sensory/ short, long, and working memory. To test her
long term memory, I asked her to tell me a story about a time that she
remembers from whenever she was younger. She started to tell me about a

8
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

dance recital of hers from whenever she was six. She told me about how her
costume was bright blue, and very sparkly, and it had a fluffy tutu on it and
that it made her very happy because that was her favorite color. She made a
note of saying that the tutu wasnt like the big girls in dance, because hers
looked like a cupcake and not straight out like the older girls. Paige talked
about how the song was really froo-froo sounding and that they had to
practice all year for it so they would remember the dance and not have to
look funny if they didnt remember what steps came next. I asked her if she
could show me the dance, but she said that she couldnt remember it THAT
well and that I was silly for asking that. To test her short term memory I
asked her if she could tell me what the first step in knitting was, the activity
we had just done beforehand, and she was able to tell me the correct answer
(You have to pick out what color of yarn you want, and then you have to tie
it a certain way so you can do that on-thing-part). To see how well her
working memory was, we played a memory card game together. It was a
simple one of just flipping over cards one after another and trying to find the
matches. She looked at me like I was crazy whenever I said that we were
going to be doing this. I asked her why she was giving me such an odd looks
and I was told this game is for little kids, not older girls like her. After
convincing her that it was okay for her to play this game, because I wouldnt
tell any of her friends that she played this memory game with me, she
agreed. Paige was able to figure out where each cards match was pretty fast.

9
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

After she and I took about three turns each, she was able to remember where
certain cards were and to my surprise, actually beat me and won the game.
Next, I told Paige that we were going to take a little break from all of
the work we had been doing and that we were going to go and get some ice
cream from Marble Slab, her favorite place to get ice cream. She got so
excited whenever I told her this and started talking to me about what flavor
she was going to get, sweet cream with LOTS and LOTS of sprinkles. Little
did she know though that there was going to be an old high school friend of
mine there waiting to have ice cream with us. I was testing her turn taking,
listening, and peer influences. Whenever we walked in and she noticed that
the friend of mine was going to be eating with us, she immediately went
from the peppy pixie that she usually was, to immediately quiet. She was so
shy it was odd for me to see her like this because never beforehand had I.
We ordered our ice cream and sat down. As I started to introduce my friend
to her she was very timid and just stared at her ice cream for a while. Then
after about five minutes of my friend and I talking she seemed to have eased
up a bit. Whenever my friend asked Paige if she liked her ice cream, she
quickly responded with, OF COURSE, I AM LOVING THIS LIDDLE BABY SO
MUCH RIGHT NOW! You could hear the little tinge of sass coming back into
her voice that she usually had. As the ice cream date time went on, Paige
started to get even more confident, so you could say, in herself and was
smarting off every now and then to my friend if he would ask her questions.

10
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

For example, at one moment, she was asked if she liked her school so far this
year, since this was her first year in elementary school. She fired back at my
friend with, Oh EW NO! There is so much homework and so many people.
Who would like that kind of stuff, ew, no. She was very opinionated on this
simple question my friend asked. Overall, I was able to tell that Paige didnt
like being in this new situation. Whenever we were in my car driving back, I
asked her directly how she felt about meeting my friend. She simply replied
with, Ive had better ice cream times. I asked her why she felt like that and
she told me that she just didnt like that she didnt know who my friend was
because she felt like she couldnt be silly like she usually is. I was definitely
able to notice this while we were getting ice cream because she just wasnt
her usual self. She was very timid, or at least for Paige she was timid
whereas others may have thought she was just being a normal young girl
because of how incredibly outspoken Paige usually is.
Whenever we got back to the house we went back outside and I asked
her how it makes her feel whenever people pick on her because of her
height, because compared to others her age she is much smaller. She
immediately got a somber look on her face and told me that it doesnt make
her feel good at all, they think its funny but its not. I dont see why it would
be Ashley. I could tell that this really hit her hard because of the look on her
face. By asking her this I was testing her self-esteem. Next, to test
Description of Self and Others, I gave her some paper and colors and asked

11
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

her to draw a picture of her with her friends. She drew her friends with just a
lot of physical details and talked about how long each of their hair was and
that some of her friends use make up now, but I dont because Mommy and
Daddy wont let me, even though I think it would make me prettier. This
really made me sad to hear because Paige is such a beautiful little girl. The
fact that girls her age think that only makeup will make them seem attractive
or even semi-appealing just broke my heart. Most girls at this age rely on
their physical appearances over anything.
Lastly we went through the gender portion of my observation. I started
off testing Gender identity and labeling by showing her various pictures and
asked her which would be for a boy and which would be for a girl. The
first pictures that I showed her were a picture of a Barbie and of Legos.

12
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

She told me that the Barbie would be for girls and the Legos would be for
boys. I asked her why and she told me that it was because girls are
supposed to wear dresses and have long hair and play with dolls and stuff
and boys are supposed to build things. Girls would never play with Legos
unless they have to. Then I showed her pictures of makeup and of baseballs.
I asked her which would be for girls and which would be for boys. She told
me the makeup would be for girls and that she gets to wear a lot of it
whenever she does her dance recitals so she knows for sure that makeup is
for girls only but that she wasnt sure about the baseballs stuff because
some of my friends who are girls play baseball but I think baseballs are for

13
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

boys because I dont do any of that stuff so I really dont know Ashley. You
could really tell that I threw her for a loop whenever I had showed her these
pictures.

For the last part of the picture portion I showed her a picture of a little boy
playing with a baby doll and a girl playing with toy dart gun. Again, I asked
her which was for boys and which would be for girls. She seemed pretty
thrown off by this one too because well the girls are supposed to be the
ones with the dolls and the boys are supposed to be with the Nerf guns Ash.
She couldnt really figure out why the pictures wouldve had the different
people in them.

14
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

Finally, I gave Paige the little

gender roles and stereotypes survey we did in class that asked about what
jobs would be considered male-geared and which would be femalegeared. As I expected she told me that jobs such as cleaning the house,
wearing pink, going to the ballet, and teaching at an elementary school
would be considered female, and cooking hamburgers, becoming a doctor,
demonstrating anger or aggression, and getting into a fight are more male. I
expected her to say this from the beginning. I thought it was a little funny
though whenever she couldnt figure out what would be female or male
whenever it came wearing blue, because I like wearing blue. You could
really tell that this threw her off her game. She got really confused and sassy
whenever she couldnt figure out which box to check on this one.
After I finished I asked Paige if she had fun and she told me that
it was okay, except for the stupid not knowing that person whenever we
went to go get ice cream thing. Then gave me a sassy little grin of hers. She

15
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

said that I did ask a lot of questions and that I shouldnt do that next time I
see her so she and I can just play and have fun. I laughed a little and told her
that I had to go. We drank one of her Mots tots juice boxes together and then
I left her house. Overall it was a really great experience, and definitely
something Ive never done before.

16
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

Ti
me

Activity

1:45
1:48

Arrive at Paige's House

Give Paige's mom a hug and hear Paige yell for juice

1:50
2:05

See Paige and she gets very excited

Sit down with Paige and start the observation: tell her we are
going to do some different activities and have a girls day.

2:15

Show Paige a picture of a red chicken

2:17
2:18

"it looks like Popos little Nacho"

It has wings, and looks like it would make that chicken sound that
you see in movies.

2:20

Showed Paige a picture of a guinea fowl

2:22

VERY quiet, has weird look on her face

2:25

"well it has spots on it, and two legs, and and a bird beak

2:28

Still quiet but has a sassy look on her face, won't let me tell her
what the picture is of

2:30
2:31

Finally asked me what it was

No way Jose! That is not a chicken, its polka-dotty and isnt red
colored.

2:33

Still in disbelief that the guinea and chicken are variations of the
same type of animal

2:35

Go outside, it is absolutely beautiful today

2:36

"I love how green the grass looks today Ashley"

2:38

Tell Paige that we are going to learn how to knit, gets VERY
excited
Start the activity
Can start to see that Paige is getting decently frustrated with the
whole ordeal

2:39
2:43

17
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

Reflection
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this project. I found
it to definitely be lengthy and a lot of work, but I
really did learn a lot. I am a very kinesthetic
learner so to be able to see what we had been
learning about in textbooks and throughout the
semester in class was very interesting to me.
Also, by getting to use a good family friend of
mine, I was able to not feel awkward or out of
place. Getting to see how someone so close to
me thinks and reacts to certain situations was

18
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

just really mind blowing. Overall, I really liked

doing this project.

19
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

20
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320

21
Ashley Fajkus
EPSY 320