Individual Differences Profile Essay
Every child is unique and different. We will never encounter two children exactly the same. They have physical, emotional, and cultural differences. In a “normal” family these differences are things like blonde hair and blue eyes compared to brown hair and green eyes. There may be one child that is laid back and another that cries bloody murder at the very thought of a paper cut. In this profile of a disabled student the differences that I encountered were much more diverse than that. I will talk about the physical, emotional and cognitive, and socio-emotional development of the student. I will also talk about the things that I found out while in the classroom.
General Information John, as we will call him in this case, is a 16-year-old white male. John seems to be an average teenage boy at first glance but he has something that most teenage boys in high school don’t. He has Asperger’s syndrome. This is an autistic disorder and he was diagnosed with it at about age two or three. This means that along with the stresses of being a teenager he has other stresses, he has developmental delays, meaning that he in some way does not or did not hit a developmental goal the same as other children. He still matures but not at the same level as a child without his disability. During my interview time with him I noticed he was very fidgety. He feels very uncomfortable around new people and it took some time for him to get used to me. Once he felt comfortable we began to talk. John felt quite uncomfortable talking to me about his family; I did however find out that he is an only child. John lives with his mom and dad, yet his mom is the person that he relies on the most. That is usually the case with an autistic disorder, they form an attachment to a single person or sometimes a family unit yet they don’t display emotions that same way as an average child would. He doesn’t like
References: Berns, R. M. (2007). Child, family, school, community (8th ed., ). Belmont: Wadsworth, Cenage Learning. Parsons, R. D., Hinson, S. L., & Sardo-Brown, D. (n.d.). Educational Psychology: for the College of Southern Idaho (pp. 20-224).