Running Head: CHILD STUDY INVESTIGATION 1

Child Study

Prof. Barbara Wylie

Craig Maude

Running Head: CHILD STUDY INVESTIGATION 2

I. General Background Information

My subject is 18 years old as of June 7th, 2014. I understand that this assignment was

meant for a 3-7 year old. However, my child study was done a person with special needs, which I

will get more into later on in the report. My child was born into a family with a mother and

father who are 54 and 55 years old, respectively. As well as two older brothers who played

football when they were in high school. The family also has one dog. The child and his mother

live in an apartment together where the dad visits regularly. I chose to interview the mom for this

report because she spends more time with the child and lives with him.

The typical day for this child includes waking up at 6:30AM and falling asleep around

9:30PM. The child doesn’t enjoy waking up, he very much enjoys sleeping in until 11AM or

noon. During a typical school day the child will wake up early at 6:30 and then gets on the bus

for school. The child will get off the bus around 3:30PM and head home. On some days the child

will go to the chiropractor, on others he will go to a food pantry and help out, and on other days

it varies. The child enjoys school and is very social, as well as listening to any music either alone

or with friends. As well as going to any concert. Music is this child’s niche and his favorite

thing, in my years of working with people with special needs I have never seen anyone with as

good of rhythm as this child. The child very rarely gets agitated or ever feels unsafe, however if

you were to call it agitation, the cure for that would be for him to take a bath. If the child feels

unsafe the only reason for that is because of being in an unusual situation but it can be solved by

just giving the child someone or something that makes him feel in a familiar situation.

The child and I have known each other for about two years now, but I have never studied

him as much as I did during this child study. When I had originally started working with the

child I thought he had Down Syndrome because of many common factors with others who had

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Down Syndrome, however after a while I thought maybe he had autism, but he is so social that I

knew it couldn’t be that either. During the interview with his mother I found out about this

disorder called Chromosomal Abnormality. Basically speaking, when the sperm and the egg go

to meet there is a specific way for them to align, however when this child’s pair of sperm and

egg when to meet they thought they were aligned but they were slightly off centered. When that

happens whatever part that wasn’t connected gets destroyed. In Chromosomal Abnormality there

are only 7 known cases in the entire world, which personally speaking, makes this child that

much more amazing to work with. The key factors for it being Chromosomal Abnormality are:

Developmental Delays

Muscular Hypotonia

Growth Deficiency

Feeding/Eating difficulties

Behavior abnormalities.

The child also has Type 1 diabetes, a liver disease (fatty infiltration), pancreatic

insufficiency, mobility and balance difficulties, as well as having to wear glasses due to an

eyesight problem. According to the DSM-IV, the child will have:

Mild Mental Handicap

Tourette Syndrome

ADHD

OCD

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PDD- NOS

Mood Disorder NOS

Apraxia of Speech

Talking with his mother I was asking about the Tourette Syndrome because the child

doesn’t randomly spout out cuss words or any other random words that might happen. However,

the child repeats a lot. When the child was born there was a high possibility he was going to be

non-verbal. Through several years of speech therapy the child is capable of speaking full

sentences now. But, for a child who has mild verbal capabilities his Tourette’s will kick in when

he gets excited and the way it comes out is through repeating the same word or phrase several

times even when instructed not to.

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II. Physical and Motor Development

As I stated earlier with the child having Chromosomal Abnormality he has a growth

deficiency, which is why the child is 5 feet tall and 140 pounds, according to

http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41l021.pdf the child falls below the 5th

percentile for height and is in the 25th percentile for weight as an 18 year old. The subject is not

technically in a healthy body at all due to all that comes with his disorder. Both his mother and

father are right handed, however I am not sure of his brother’s dominant traits, the child is also

right footed. When I asked for him to stand on one foot he did go straight to attempting it on his

right foot and couldn’t even attempt with his left foot. There is one thing I didn’t know how to

test as well but one thing I would mark as excellent for him, and that is his rhythm. His favorite

activity is listening to music, whether it’s with people or alone with headphones on. Regardless

of how he listens to the music there is one constant, he moves. He will either tap his foot or his

hand perfectly with the beat, or if the song and time is right he will stand up and move back and

forth with the music. This part of his physical and motor development is, in my opinion, his most

advanced part. The table below has some of the tests I worked on with the child as well as a few

comments with each test.

Test Yes No Comment

Balance on 1 foot X Struggles to stay up and moves up and down

trying to keep balance

Upstairs/downstairs by self X Has to go one by one and cannot skip steps or hit

steps consecutively but does not go fast.

Throws ball overhand X Throws a soccer ball with two hands and pushes

it more than does the throwing motion

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Dribbles basketball X Can dribble it one time but cannot continue to

dribble it

Moves forward/backward X Can walk forward while looking up, was looking

down at first but then looked up. Can walk

backwards, cannot run backwards though.

Draws person X Originally told me he could not draw his family,

then I asked him to draw one person, he drew a

person with a big head, very tiny torso, did add

hands and feet and hair. The face was crooked

and he drew it sideways instead of up and down.

Draws shapes X Did struggle drawing shapes, can only draw

circle, but they looked like ovals, I asked him to

draw triangles and he didn’t know what they

were. When I drew a triangle and asked him to

copy he drew a longer one with not as precise

points

III. Cognitive Development

If I were to give this 18 year old subject with Chromosomal Abnormality a “typical” person’s

age I would give him the age for around 6 to 8 years old. The tests I ran with him cognitively are

my proof for those findings. The child was capable of speaking in sentences with 5-6 words in

them but in order for that to happen I would have to say, “Could you use a complete sentence

please?” or say “sentences,” and this would lead to him using words like “I want” or “Can I” and

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then the sentence would be formed. There was one test I ran with the child from Piaget’s theory

of conservation. I grabbed two cups and filled them up equally with water. After showing the

child that the cups were equal with water I poured one into a bowl and asked the child which one

had more in it, the child chose the cup because it was taller and looked to have more water in it.

When I poured the water back into the cup and asked which had more in it the child said they

were the same. I repeated this test again and he still believed the cup was holding more water

than the bowl. Interviewing with his mother she described to me his speech as “Amazing,”

Chromosomal Abnormality does include speech apraxia which makes it hard for the brain to

move the muscles like the lips, mouth, and tongue. The mother also informed me that when the

child was born the doctor told the mom and dad that the likelihood of their child speaking is very

low and if he does at all if will be very minimal. Nothing to the extent of how he can speak

today. Nevertheless, the speech apraxia has impacted him to where it is hard for him to

understand what he is saying. Working with this child for 2 years now I do tell people I am fluent

in ____ (child’s name) because I do understand him very well and am aware of his vocabulary

abilities. To a stranger though, it can be very hard to hear and understand what the child is

saying. My findings for a few tests are below, where I studied cognitively where the child might

rank as well as just spending time with him and asking questions that are not on the graph. The

other papers attached on here are from quizzes where I had the child read out loud the words on

the paper and graded my findings.

Milestone Yes No Comment

Speaks in 5-6 word sentences X Can speak in sentences, however

you have to ask for a complete

sentence and then he can.

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Able to be understood by

strangers

X The subject is difficult to

understand. I have worked for 2

years with him and can understand

him better than most. However

others ask me what he is saying.

Correctly names some colors X The subject can name all basic

colors

Knows a few numbers X The subject can recite number 1-20

correctly, he knows the numbers

afterwards however cannot

articulate them but when asked to

read 52 he knows it but cannot

articulate very well.

Follows three part commands X Has some issues and needs to be

reminded after the first time but

can fulfill

Can read and recite words X Papers attached show different

words that the child read out loud.

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IV. Social/emotional Development

While my initial reaction was to give the child an age of 6-8 years old there is one factor

to which I could almost give him the cognitive age of 18 years old. Empathetically,

sympathetically, and just overall emotionally, the child is above most “typical” people at the

age of 18. In 2 years of working with the child one thing that has always taken me by surprise

and shocked me is his emotional awareness and it doesn’t just fall under knowing happy and

sad, but knowing anger, frustration, confused, and above all sassy. The child has on several

occasions responded with a witty remark matched with a perfect voice inflection and a facial

expression to go with it that it takes anyone by surprise and just forces you to laugh because

of how perfect it was. After talking with his mom and sharing stories of him and I hanging

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out together and telling her about these emotional findings she shares the same types of

stories with me that her other two sons would tell her whenever they would hang out with the

child. The cognitive development of this child is surprising, where scholastically the child is

around first grade development, but emotionally and personally the child can show more

often than not that he is at 18 years old cognitively.

V. Your Reactions, Recommendations, and Application

Being able to study and investigate this 18 year old child over a “typical” 3-8 year old child

was a blessing and overall more beneficial to me than if I would have studied a “typical” child.

The only different thing I think I would have done when going back is done more with the

cognitive development test wise. A few of my findings came from just having conversations with

the child and observing them instead of asking to do a task. I thought that maybe I would have

wanted to study a “typical” child to make my study a little easier when it came time to write how

they did compared to other children. Nevertheless, during my study I found that I really wanted

to keep continuing to study my subject. Learning about his 1 in 7 disorder, on top of everything

that comes with it was interesting and something I will take with me for the rest of my career.

My ultimate goal of becoming a Special Education teacher at a high school level will benefit

from this study and this class as a whole. Finding that even with the age of the student being 18

years old but cognitively still being around 6 years old will help me in focusing on lesson plans

or any other teaching tools I might use as a teacher later on in my career.