Observation Paper #3

FHS-1500-006
Brian Mardjuki
Observation 3

Background Information
Child's age: 10
Fictitious Name: Kelly
Location:
Brief Description: I observed Kelly interacting with other children during class time and recess.

Biological Development
During my observation of Kelly there were a variety of things that i noticed about her
biological development. My first observation was that Kelly was not as overweight as a lot of her
friends. In the text it says Childhood obesity has more than doubled since 1980 in all three
nations of North America. (Berger, 2016 Pg. 242). This makes sense, because a lot of children
are more overweight than they should be. I noticed that Kelly was interested in electronics and
talked a lot about them with her friends. I think that this is a contributor to child obesity, because
more children are staying inside playing with their electronics, rather than going outside and
playing. It is more common that children dont have safe places to play outside and this causes
them to stay inside more and become overweight. The book says Parents can reduce
overweight by limiting screen time and playing outside with their children. The community
matters as well: When neighborhoods have no safe places to play, rates of obesity soar.
(Berger, 2016, pg. 245). It is more common that there are single parents, so they arent as
involved with their kids. Another observation I had was that Kelly had asthma. This was not
surprising, because in the text it says Parents report that 15 percent of U.S. 5-11 year-olds
have been diagnosed with asthma at some time and almost 11 percent still suffer from it.
(Berger, 2016 pg. 244). Kelly seemed to have trouble running around, because she was unable
to breath hard without losing her breath.

Cognitive Development
I observed that Kelly was a lot smarter than a lot of her classmates. She seemed to think
very logically and gave very logical answers in class. This is an example of concrete operational
thought. In the book it says that this is Piagets term for the ability to reason logically about
direct experiences and perceptions. (Berger, 2016 pg.247). I think that kids learn to think
logically as they experience more things in life. They start to realize that thinking logically is best
for them. Kelly was good at organizing things into groups. I observed Kelly talking to her friends
and she seemed to understand the organization of her family and that family included parents,
siblings and cousins. This is an example of classification, because the definition of classification
is the logical principle that things can be organized into groups according to some
characteristics they have in common. (Berger, 2016 pg. 247). During class I observed that Kelly
had an easy time focusing on one thing at a time. Most kids have a hard time focusing in class,
but at this age kids seem to have an easier time focusing. This is an example of selective
attention, because selective attention is the ability to concentrate on some stimuli while ignoring
others. (Berger, 2016 pg. 249).

Psychosocial Development
I observed that Kelly interacted very well with her peers. She was very social and
seemed to have a lot of friends. I think that this is common in children her age, because at this
age they are starting to have more self identity and they are more comfortable with who they
are. Children this age are going through puberty and this causes them to be more curious. They
start to become more curious about themselves and others around them. I observed that Kelly
was not afraid to talk to the opposite sex and this was a surprise, because some children this
age dont like to associate with the opposite sex of them.