Virtual Child

Virtual Project 1 Earl Morgan Jr. Ivy Tech Community College

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Virtual Child 1 We have heard that babies become attached to the person who nurtures and takes care of them. In a loving and nurturing environment we wonder who will be first to meet the needs of children entrusted in our care. I think that the answers gradually manifest themselves on the individuals that have responsibilities for providing direct parenting to children. While I am not the biological father, I have observed that Khaliyah cries when either of us leaves the room, and particularly when she is upset. Usually, when she is upset she will seeks out whichever parent is available to address the issues at hand. Khaliyahs mother and I both realize that she is equally attached to both of us. In our textbook on page (158) it says an Infant must learn locomotion that is very important to move about in the world. Khaliyah is a rather typical child in terms of her eating, sleeping and motor development. Motor Skills coordinated movement of her muscles and limbs. Based on my observations, she is advanced in her gross and fine motor skills. I have also noted that she is very curious, she enjoys crawling and manipulating objects that are found in her environment. We encourage this by letting her mess around a lot within a confined, safe environment protected by baby gates. She is cautious and shy around new people and situations, but is not combative or totally uncooperative, and will eventually explore and warm up to some degree. Overall Khaliyah is an easy child, with some slow-to-warm-up tendencies. I feel her biological patterns are fairly normal; she eats well and sleeps easy at night. She is very open to meeting new people and surroundings, but will quick to warm up if her mom or I are around. After reading on page (148) it says Early on infants master size constancy, the realization that an objects actual size remains the same despite change in the size of its retinal image. We tried the object permanence test. Khaliyah is able to find a hidden object, as long as we don't wait too long or distract her in the middle of the search. Khaliyah really likes this hiding game and shows by her interest that she

Virtual Child wants it repeated. However, if we hide the object in the same place repeatedly, and then change the

hiding place, Khaliyah has a strong tendency to look in the old hiding place, and then get confused about where the object is, or forget about it. This curious error was first discovered by Piaget, but researchers have some new explanations for the error. Khaliyah has been in pretty good health, except for occasional bouts of indigestion and diarrhea. Khaliyah is usually interested in trying new foods. We want Khaliyah to establish a regular bed-time and sleep through the night. We think she's almost there. So we make sure she doesn't take too long of a nap in the late afternoon. We try to time it so she'll get sleepy around 8:00 PM. Khaliyah is a very active crawler and is always on the go. We are afraid she might get into something and get hurt so we have baby-proof the entire house and let Khaliyah move about freely. As Khaliyah turns 9 months, the pediatrician has the following to say after a routine physical exam, a few items administered from the Bayley Scales of Infant Intelligence, and some observations of Khaliyah in the playroom based on reports, Khaliyah is physically healthy. The doctors recommend a greater variety of baby food and ground up fruits and vegetables. Khaliyah readily adapted to the new people and situations in the pediatrician's office. She made eye contact, smiled at them, and vocalized to them quite a bit. Khaliyah had fairly mild to positive reactions to most of the situations and people in the pediatrician's office and the playroom. She cried when given the vaccination, but calmed down rather quickly. The only problem came with a brief separation from your partner, but that would be expected. Khaliyah is advanced in her gross and fine motor skills and enjoys crawling, pulling up to stand and manipulating objects. When Khaliyah was 3 months is able to focus her eyes on us. She spends a lot of time studying our face and the faces of anyone who comes close to her. Grandma has been coming over the past few weeks to take care of Khaliyah on weekends or in the evening for a couple of hours. This has put everyone in a better mood and gives us a chance to go out once in a while. However, we generally end up talking about Khaliyah and calling home a couple of times to make sure she is OK! At 3 months of

Virtual Child age, Khaliyah is showing more intense interest in her surroundings. Khaliyah smiles at familiar people and toys, is able to laugh at surprising or funny things and is developing lots of cute little habits. According to Bowlby, children who form an attachment that is an enduring social emotional relationship to an adult are more likely to survive. (331) Khaliyah development 3 months till 8 months have change completely It wasn't easy for her to go to unfamiliar adults. As a result Khaliyah is showing a slight preference towards her mother. I'm not worried about this. Reading in the book it talks about preattachment develops soon after birth; infants rapidly learn to recognize their mothers smell and sound which set the stages for forging an attachment relationship. I interact with her a lot when I'm around, and in a very positive way, so I know our bond is strong. I'm not about to compete with her mother for her affection. According to Bowlby, children who form an attachment that is an enduring social emotional relationship to an adult are more likely to survive. As to the overall effect of our parental interaction, I read about the role of the father and its say the the babies soon become

attached to the father too, Fathers spend more time playing with their babies than taking care of them. I believe we are creating a strong "secure base" for her to explore, as described by Mary Ainsworth. Mary Ainsworth talks about Secure Attachment this when the baby may or may not cry when parents leave but when we return the baby wants to be with us. We used some of the steps in the Strange Situation. We have let Khaliyah explore a playroom for 3 minutes and we watch but do not participate. When we return to leave again we say bye-Bye as we leave. When Khaliyah cries we let the sitter attempt to calm her down and play with her. When do leave sometimes she shows the Disorganized attachment. The book explains it as this is when Khaliyah Seems confused when we leave and when we returns, seems not to understand what happen. Khaliyah had a dazed look on her face thinking whats going on. The book says 5 to 10%of American babies have disorganized attachment relationships. On page (221) the Book says Problem solving is such an important skill, In the book between the 8th and 12 month love to start playing games and smiling all while and Khaliyah is a very happy child

Virtual Child and understanding objects are a little incomplete. By the 18 month Khaliyah began to talk and use gestures. She knows her parents. She likes to repeat the same things and doesnt seem to get bored

very quickly. She is learning new things every day and showing remarkable motor skills. Developmentally she appears to be progressing well with many of the skills important for her age. She organizes her toys by color or size, has a good memory for the location of previously hidden objects when playing games with us, and is able to solve simple problems with little or no help. Emotionally she is happy and easy to deal with. The issue she had with relating more with her mother has abated somewhat, and she seems almost equally comfortable with both of us. She doesnt have any trouble with meeting new people, but the intensity of her reactions has eased, and she warms up more quickly. She gets along well with the people she is comfortable with, and interacts socially with them. Again, I'm not worried about this; I hope she always shows discretion. Physically she is very active and energetic. Her interactions are very cooperative and team oriented when playing with others, with only occasional fits, usually when overly tired or hungry. Emotionally we haven't seen any directional changes. She is still even tempered and friendly, with the changes we're seeing being mostly the development and growth of the personality she developed originally. With regard to her personality, we are trying to tailor our rearing techniques to match what we believe to be the best "goodness of fit" for her. For example, when she gets fussy or uncooperative we respond by giving her the option of two choices of how to act. She loves making decisions and seeking solutions, so this steers her in the direction we need her to go while providing her with an outlet for her emotions at the time. Khaliyah has learned a few words in Spanish from a neighbor child - mostly things that are important to toddlers, such as "No" and "Mine." We notice that Khaliyah is less clingy lately, and often wants to be put down to explore rather than to be held. Her favorite places to venture out are the park and the store. We recognize this as a normal pattern, and continue to provide support verbally and by displaying sympathetic or approving facial expressions. But we were starting to see an issue Khaliyah has a

Virtual Child tremendous drive to use her motor skills. You have to keep an eye on Khaliyah because she will quickly toddle off into the crowd at public places or even into the street! Khaliyah has shown some interesting

new behavior. She acts shy when looking in the mirror, uses the word "me" a lot, and wants to do things herself. You think the new behavior is a sign of self-awareness, and we have to decide what the balance will be between allowing Khaliyah to be independent and teaching her to follow your rules. So we recognize Khaliyah needs to have firm limits and insist always that she do what you ask. Khaliyah is very interested in music, and often dances in rhythm to your favorite music, and tries to clap or sing along with songs that you sing or that are played on TV. We teach her some short little preschool songs and enjoy dancing or moving around together to music. Khaliyah sometimes takes on problems that are too difficult for her age level. She sometimes gets frustrated and gives up. As parents we get involved in the activity and show Khaliyah how to solve part of the puzzle or build part of the tower. Khaliyah spends a lot of time playing with blocks and puzzles and studying what various objects can do. We enjoy these activities and the two of us spend a lot of time manipulating the blocks or talking about how objects work or how they are put together. Khaliyah is able to imitate actions or words that she has seen or heard days before. This greatly expands her ability to learn new things. Khaliyah also seems to be aware of basic categories, such as big or little, and blue or red. We can tell because of the way she is sorting her toys. Khaliyah developmental assessment was very impressive, but not surprising. She has always shown above average abilities for her block building and toy manipulation, as well as her motor skills. I don't want to force any changes on her. I am deathly afraid of the ripple effect. My wife has involved her with toddler playgroups to improve her experience with other children. I tried to make better choices on what to do to help her and get her out of some of the bad habits that she got used to. The choices that I made to try and help didnt seem to get it better. Im not really surprised because these are some of the behaviors that I actually went through when I was little. She is able to recognize words. My wife and I read aloud to Khaliyah to

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help recognize words. Then reading in the book it says Teaching young children to read is probably the most important instructional goal for most American elementary school. So we as parent find it very important to teach khaliyah to recognize words and begin to read. We have used some of the books examples such as using mindless drills to recognize letters and sounds. Yes were up to date on Technology and have downloaded games on our IPad and cell phones to provide education games. On page (235) Children become more skilled at recognizing words, allowing more working memory capacity to devote to comprehension. I feel Khaliyah can focus on her efforts and mean the whole sentence. My wife and I try to provide a positive environmental and select the people we let be around her. Khaliyah is able to enroll when she becomes reasonably well potty-trained. She is 19 months old now. To find out how Khaliyahs development compares to other children of her age at this point, we had an assessment done. The early childhood specialist observes Khaliyah in free play with other kids and does a little testing of cognitive skills. She reports the following: After she got warmed up, Khaliyah seemed to get along very well with the other kids, and was unusually cooperative for a child of her age. The examiner thought that Khaliyah would adapt well to the preschool environment. The specialist thought that Khaliyah was securely attached, but that the communication system between parent and child could be improved. She recommended that both parents try to read Khaliyahs reactions more carefully and work on interpersonal communication. The specialist thought that Khaliyah was slow to warm up to new situations with adults, but that if you gave her time, she usually came around. Khaliyah was cheerful throughout the play sessions and the examination session and rarely became tense or emotional during the period of observation. Khaliyah scored at about the 18-19 month range for communication skill, language comprehension and language production. This is age-appropriate of course, but the examiner recommended that because Khaliyah was in such an important period of language development, that you spend as much time as possible talking with Khaliyah , asking questions that require some kind of extended answer rather than just "yes" or "no", and looking at and naming

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things in picture books. Khaliyah was above age-norms for building a block tower to model one made by the examiner and other spatial skills such as copying shapes, coloring within the lines and solving picture puzzles. Khaliyah was advanced in her gross motor skills. The examiner recommended that you expose Khaliyah to a variety of indoor and outdoor activities and let her interests be the guide as to what to pursue. The examiner commented that Khaliyah was able to concentrate very well during all of the informal testing, and if this continues, she would be more than ready for preschool-type activities, which typically require children to stay on task or remain in "group time" for 10-15 minutes. She also recommended getting Khaliyah to follow simple directions at home, gradually increasing the complexity and length of the directions. Khaliyahs communication skills are growing. She is speaking mostly in two to three words "telegraphic" sentences. Her vocabulary is expanding because of her desire to learn new words. So we go to the library fairly often and read books that Khaliyah chooses off the shelves to her. We have notice that Khaliyah has some new emotions over the past few months. Some things you have noticed are shy smiles when asked to be in photographs, looking guilty when she breaks something, and embarrassment when she has a potty accident. You realize these new emotions are related to her developing selfawareness. Khaliyah recently has become good at solving problems that she plans out in her head, such as how to get toys or other objects that are hidden or out of reach. We encourage Khaliyah to use these new cognitive skills to solve problems on her own. Khaliyah has been riding her "hot wheels" tricycle a lot lately, but recently has avoided it completely because of a scary accident in which she went off a curb in the park and got scratched up. We don't push Khaliyah to get back on the tricycle. We figure she will get back on it when she is ready. Khaliyah sometimes wakes up at night with what seems to be a bad dream. We also notice she is afraid of dogs, trucks and the dark. One day she refuses to go out for the morning walk because "bad doggie" might be there. There was a dog that leaped at a fence and scared Khaliyah a week ago. We decide to help Khaliyah by talking about the dog, driving by to look at the tall,

Virtual Child strong fence, and gradually exposing Khaliyah to dogs, through pictures, videos and eventually small, friendly dogs. We are spending more time with Khaliyah lately. Money is tight, because you are saving to buy a house, but you and Khaliyah have fun in inexpensive activities like going to the zoo, the petting farm, museums and the park. Khaliyah has a close relationship with me and her mother, and in new situations seems to need to check back with you regularly. We take our cues from her, staying close if she seems to need it, but otherwise letting her engage with the new activity on her own. Khaliyah doesn't mind the rules very well at home, and sometimes resists dropping her current activity for regular daily routines such as mealtime, bath time or bedtime. We explain the rules, warn Khaliyah when she is violating them, and put her in time-out for a repeat violation. We praise her for following the rules. Khaliyah is getting much better lately at playing hide and seek and at searching for things around the house. We play lots of hide and seek games. Amusingly, when you find a good spot to hide yourself, Khaliyah uses that for herself the very next turn. When Khaliyah is searching for lost toys, books we try to help her by demonstrating simple search rules, such as start where you last saw the

object, look in all of the places where it is usually found. Khaliyah seems now to have a goal of becoming potty trained and makes it to the potty about 60% of the time. A couple of other parents you know were bragging that their 2 year old was already potty-trained. We try to guide Khaliyah by involving her in the clean-up of accidents, and by praising and giving her stickers for successful trips to the potty. Khaliyah can remember recent experiences and provide simple descriptions of what happens, such as a trip to the petting zoo or the amusement park. We are impressed that her memory is working so well, and we suspect that she has had the ability to remember these experiences for quite some time, but hasn't had the ability to express it until recently. Khaliyah is going to be starting in a new preschool program soon, so you take advantage of the fact that a friend of yours is an early childhood development specialist. You ask her to evaluate Khaliyah, who is 2 1/2 years old. The specialist evaluates Khaliyahs language, motor

Virtual Child and cognitive skills using some developmental scales, and observes Khaliyah interacting with other children in a toddler play group.

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In conclusion Khaliyah was somewhat hesitant in the group of children and spent a few minutes watching them before joining in. After a while she latched on to a couple of the other children and had a good time. By the end of the session they were smiling and imitating each other. Khaliyah was generally not very aggressive with the other kids, but would sometimes say "Mine!" if there was a toy both children wanted. However, Khaliyah would usually smile and give up the toy a few moments later and seek out a different toy. The specialist said that Khaliyah was ready for preschool already in terms of aggressive behavior. Khaliyah handled challenging tasks fairly well except for an occasional need for encouragement. Khaliyahs scores on measures of language comprehension and production were in the average range, and she was beginning to show more consistent use in conversational speech of grammatical markers such as past tense, plural, etc. The specialist recommended you continue to converse about anything of interest to Khaliyah, read favorite books to her and go on outings. Khaliyah is about average in solving problems with more than two steps, and grouping objects together in categories. The specialist recommended that you help Khaliyah "talk through" the steps in solving problems, and that you expose Khaliyah to more hands-on learning activities. She is above average in copying shapes with a pencil, working with picture puzzles and constructing things out of blocks and seemed to enjoy working with these things a great deal. The specialist advised that you offer Khaliyah more complex construction activities such as making things out of sets of building blocks or interlocking blocks, train tracks. Khaliyah was above average on nearly all gross motor skills, such as climbing, throwing and catching a ball, balancing, and skipping and enjoyed these activities quite a bit. The advice was to continue these activities, emphasizing Khaliyahs interests and focusing on having fun with them. Khaliyah was able to focus on the tasks given by the examiner for the entire 40-minute session. The examiner said this was unusually good for the age. She recommended that we ask Khaliyah to carry out

Virtual Child more and more complex daily tasks such as getting dressed and read longer stories in preparation for preschool.

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Virtual Child Reference Page Children and Their Development, 6e. Kail, Robert V. Pearson Education, Inc., 2012 www.myvirtualchild.com

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