Analysis of Case Study from a Perspective of Human Development across the Life Span
From the angle that the case study has been presented, I as the school’s social worker have been tasked to look into the case of “Yasmin” a previously high achieving student who has recently been scoring low grades and is reportedly moody. We have been informed that she lives with her mother and five other siblings. Their ages were not presented, and as such, we will be conducting this analysis on the assumption that her mother is in her fifties, her eldest brother in his twenties, her elder sister in her late adolescence (17 – 18 yrs), and that her younger siblings are in primary school. Much of our analysis will be based on Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory of Development [1950; 1968].
Analysis & Assessments
Yasmin was “abandoned” by her biological father soon after her birth, at a stage of life where an infant would normally be going through the stage of “Trust VS Mistrust” as defined by Erikson [1950; 1968].
This is generally a period of time where “Caregivers comprise the infant’s main Microsystem [Bronfenbrenner, 1977], and through the nature and quality of their interactions, influence his/her perception and understanding of the world as either safe or fearful”. [Sugarman, 2005]
Erikson [1950] mirrors that perspective, and states that the major emphasis for the child is the need for the mother’s positive and loving care, and if this need is not met, the child will move into a state of “Mistrust” where she would develop deep seated self-esteem issues, and a sense that the future may not be as stable as hoped. With the knowledge that Yasmin’s father abandoned the family at this juncture in time, we may need to make the assumption that Yasmin’s mother may not have been in the right state either mentally or emotionally to care for her newborn child. This coupled with the fact that her mother was the only
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