A Case Study on Child Development - Matteo

A CASE STUDY ON CHILD

DEVELOPMENTMONTELIBANO, JOSE LUIS RICARDO

NALANGAN, JESLYN FAYE

SANDEL, LAWRENCE MIGUEL

BACKGROUND OF THE CHILD

Matteo is a 6 years old Grade 1 student at John Dewey School for

Children. He is very playful and sociable child. Colossal squid is his

favorite animal and oftentimes he will suddenly claw his fingers and

imitate its hands movements. But dinosaurs and scary things are what he

draws most of the time. Scary things for him are anything with spikes. In

his drawing book, there is a house with spikes, a man wearing shoes with

spikes and any possible thing that can be drawn with spikes.

BACKGROUND OF THE CHILDThe teachers have not yet determined in what particular field Matteo

excels because he still needs help in his academic performance. He is

having a difficult time doing his schoolworks by himself. Therefore, every

day after class, he stays at school for his tutoring session because if he

does not, his homeworks will still be homeworks the next day. It has also

been said that Matteo is used to always getting what he wants and

whenever things do not go his way he tends to throw tantrums and act

very cranky.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Motor skills are very essential for him right now. These test his reactions to

his surroundings or even to a certain stimuli. His physical abilities and

capacities widen as he continue to grow and learn new things thoroughly. He

uses his main bodily movements in performing gross motor skills-- jumping,

running, dancing, balancing, skipping and turning. On the other hand, he uses

his small bodily movements in performing fine motor skills such as writing,

drawing and tying shoe laces. Children must have adequate opportunities

and be interested in developing these skills to become more competent.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Matteo sometimes shows hyperactivity in his actions, he jumps and runs from one place to

another and shows no sign of stopping or slowing down. His energy level is stable and always full,

enabling him to perform those motor skills and do multiple tasks at the same time. Mateo also

loves to draw and he is surprisingly good at it.

Matteo’s health is also a factor in his physical development. He may have some respiratory

ailments, cough, cold or stomachaches due to his not yet fully developed lungs. But because JDSC

has a healthy food policy, the healthy foods that are fed to the children lessen the chances for them

to get sick. Physical development is an important factor for children like Matteo because their

conditions and actions rely on it.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

The teacher gave the children an activity on their workbooks to do, this is also

known as a schema or cognitive frameworks or concepts that help people organize

and interpret information. After observing Matteo during this activity, we decided to

assist him to help him get into the follow of the lesson. At first, egocentrism was

quite obvious in the child for he was grumpy and insisted on doing things his own

way. After his teacher noted his mistakes, he was asked to do the activity again and

that’s when he decided to take in our help. We guided him through his work using

the scaffolding method.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Matteo showed the preoperational stage perfectly. Doing things his own way at first showed that

he could not completely manipulate information and was unable to take in the point of view of

others. On the other hand, his egocentrism did show the cognitive skill of reasoning, which was

proof of his cognitive development. He also showed the cognitive skill of problem – solving when

he then decided that take in our help, knowing his situation. Lastly, not just Matteo but the entire

class showed that memory was present in their cognitive development when they actually

remembered some of our names as we entered their classroom during the second school visit.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Matteo is a playful and happy person. He is always jumping around or playing with his classmates.

He is very talkative as well. Once a person starts talking to him, he will eventually be the only one

doing the talking. Despite his parents being separated, they were still able to show him positive

emotional skills that contributed in shaping his emotional development. Children who learn positive

emotional skills from their parents seem to have more success making friends. Children of

emotionally expressive mothers tend to receive high regard from their peers (Cassidy, Parke,

Butkovsky, & Braungart, 1992). Matteo seems to be friendly with his classmates and seems to share

a good relationship with them.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Social development of a child refers on how he reacts and responds on his environment. This is

the start of child's relationship development, which includes building of friendship or

socialization in the community. Matteo is a very sociable child. He is cheerful and approachable

so his classmates are always playing with him. When talking to him, it seems like he always has a

lot to say that eventually he will be the only one doing the talking. As his teacher said, he is really

good at manipulating people. He gets them distracted when they talk to him so he can avoid

doing something he does not want to do. Reiner seems to be his closest friend. Although Reiner

has some special needs, this did not stop Matteo from befriending him. Every time they are

seated beside each other, which is most of the time, they always have something to talk to and

laugh about.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Matteo seems to be close with some of his classmates. They are often playing with

each other and it is surprising to know that even if they are just kids they already

have concern for each other. When Matteo only kept on eating his rice, his friend told

him to also eat the vegetables and meat because his body needs it.

CONCLUSION

Matteo has developed properly in terms of physical development and social development. His

body is able to withstand his physical activities like playing, jumping and running around. He

also has a good interpersonal relationship with his classmates and teachers although

sometimes he can be really persistent in doing what he wants. Despite the situation of his

parents, it is wonderful to see that he is still a jolly kid outside and that he is trying not to let the

separation affect his social life.  

Matteo had successfully made it through Erik Erikson’s industry vs. inferiority. The

acknowledgement and encouragement he got because of his drawings helped him through this

stage. He felt sense of accomplishment upon knowing that he has something to prove to people.

Matteo was able to develop competence as he successfully passes this stage.

CONCLUSION

However, despite the positive approaches on these two aspects, he still needs to be further

developed cognitively and emotionally. In Matteo’s case, he is having a hard time with school. It

is normal but still needs development. It takes time for children to adapt to school activities by

themselves. Children around his age usually have tutors who assist and guide them in doing the

schoolworks. Also, Matteo has been showing signs that he is still egocentric.

As for Matteo’s emotional development, he is still affected by his parents’ separation which is

the reason why he still gets emotional upon talking about it. Children who are victims of

broken families are often affected seriously only during the ffirst year but once the child starts

to understand the situation, he eventually starts to adapt to it and soon the topic will not be

something to avoid any longer.

RECOMMENDATIONS

For future case studies, a few more visits would be greatly appreciated for it

will give students more knowledge and information on the children they

will be observing. This will also give them more time to gather more

information, which may in fact produce better and more interesting case

studies. Scheduled meetings/ a scheduled meeting with the subject’s

(child’s) parents/parent would also be a great tool in producing better case

studies.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Overall, we would recommend this school, the John Dewey School for

Children, for future case studies for it on its own is still a developing school.

On behalf of our classmates, we would like to say thank you, Ms. Razo, for

giving us the opportunity to visit, use, and learn from the amazing children

of John Dewey School for Children for our case study.

MATTEO6 YEARS OLD

MATTEOdrawing on his drawing book

(in red)

during Arts class

MATTEO

answering his seatwork

MATTEO

MATTEOwith his mother

MATTEO’sself-made family tree for Filipino class

being playful while taking a picture with us and his classmates

MATTEO

MATTEOwith the group members