Melanie Dean

Typical and Atypical

My Virtual Child
11/20/13

8 years, 11 months
1) How smart is your child, and in what areas? Think back to the
blurb on multiple intelligences that appeared at age 6. Find
specific evidence regarding your child's verbal, logicalmathematical, spatial, musical and bodily-kinesthetic
intelligence from your observations of your own child as well
as the psychologist's report at age 8 years, 11 months.

According to the My Virtual Child the psychologist interview at 8

years 11 months, Arabella scored average and above average in word
recognition, reading fluency, phonological awareness, and spelling.
Arabellas score on the verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children was information 15, vocabulary 17, similarities 16,
and comprehension 16. Arabella fell into the gifted range with these
scores. She is also very strong in math concepts, math application
problems, and math computation skills. Her visual-spatial ability was
also above average and the examiner recommended that we influence
her to draw, design, and build for experience. Arabella has been
roughly in the same category since age 6, as far as reading and math,
but there was a lot of improvement in visual-spatial and math
computation skills. As referred to on page 181 of the textbook,
we started to watch Arabellas calorie intake because although she
wasnt gaining weight, we want her to stay healthy and fit.

2) Describe some examples of your child's behavior or thinking

that you think are due to typical American gender role
socialization and explain why you think so. Several examples
can be found at ages 6 and 8. How closely does your attitude

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toward gender roles correspond to typical American attitudes,
and if there is a discrepancy, to what do you attribute this
(e.g., cultural background, attitudes of your own parents,
etc.)?

According to My Virtual Child, Arabellas behavior is still very

outgoing and friendly. She was calm and cheerful during the IQ and
achievement test at age 8 years 11 months. Even when questions
became difficult or frustrating, Arabella remained calm. Arabella does
not have any unusual problems with impulsivity, inattentiveness, or
hyperactivity. She remained very focused and concentrated throughout
the IQ and achievement tests. Arabella exhibits typical activities based
on gender roles. She enjoys dance and gymnastics and has been doing
them for the past two seasons. She also enjoys drawing and designing
things, which are gender-neutral activities. Arabella also wanted to
play an instrument in the band, so she chose the flute. The flute would
tend to be a female gender-specific instrument. I do feel that Arabella
does many female gender-specific activities and has female gender
specific interests. We do try to encourage other activities, such as
outdoor play, riding bikes, etc. to get her to participate in both gender
role activities.

3) How might your child's development have been different if

she/he was raised by people with a different socioeconomic,
ethnic, or cultural background? Base your answer on specific
evidence of SES/cultural differences from the textbook and
class lectures.

If people with a different socioeconomic or ethic background had raised

Arabella, things definitely would have been different. Every ethnic
background would have different traditions, different foods, and
perhaps different rituals and activities. Also discipline levels would
differ depending on the background. Coming from a different
socioeconomic background could have influenced Arabella in the
amount of resources she had, books, toys, etc. Overall, I feel the

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socioeconomic, ethnic or cultural background differing wouldnt be too
different because all parents love their children regardless of their
backgrounds and Arabella would have been taken care of and loved
equally. According to the website I found,
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/culture-affect-languagedevelopment-child-15856.html, children in all cultures are born with
the same capability of language acquisition, and acquire language
roughly the same way. They all learn through imitating adults, imitating
sounds, and learning vocabulary of adults. In all environments, the
adult speech that the children hear will the same and will influence the
childs language development in the same way.