March 8, 2012
Case Study 1 This study will provide an understanding of a child’s physical, cognitive, and social development. Early childhood is a time of remarkable physical, cognitive, social, as well as emotional development. Infants enter the world with a limited range of skills and abilities. Watching a child develop new motor, cognitive, language and social skills is a source of wonders for parents and caregivers. The study of human development is a rich and varied subject. We all have personal experience with development, but it is sometimes difficult to understand exactly how and why people grow, learn, and change. What happens or doesn’t happen to children in the earliest years of their lives is of critical importance, both to their immediate well-being and to their future. If you received the best start in your earliest years of life, you are more likely to have grown healthy, developed language and learning capacities, or gone to school and led a productive, rewarding life. Let’s take a closer look at early childhood development including the well-being of potential influences around the child. Five year old Madison, a cheerful and clever girl, is one of the most active children I have ever met. She is a member of gymnastics, dancing, and little league softball team. Weighing about thirty five pounds and very lean, she has the energy times three of one child. To determine Madison’s maturity of her motor skill development, I created a test for both her gross motor skills and fine motor skills. To test her development of her gross motor skills, I told her to run up and down the driveway of her yard, which was about 9 feet in length, until she was tired. Madison only ran this length four times before giving up. I determined that her gross motor skills were above average because of her speed, pace, and length of running. To test her fine motor skills, I gave her one sheet of wide ruled paper and told her to copy each sentence: “My