PEPSI Screening

Case Study
EDU 220 Principles of Education Psychology
Summer 2016

Valerie Alvizo
 Case study subject is 9-year-old female, Sarai. She Lives in Las Vegas, NV, where she
was born and raised, with her mother, siblings and nephew. The family also have 1 dog. Sarais
mother and father are separated but still married, her father lives in Washington. Sarai is the
youngest of six children, 4 females and 2 males ranging from ages 16-32, all children have the
same biological parents. She has a seven-year-old nephew who lives at home as well. Her
parents are immigrants from Mexico and have lived in the United States for 30 years.
Sarais mother is currently unemployed, she has a college degree in Elementary
Education from her home country, Mexico, where she was a teacher before becoming a stay at
home mom. Mom speaks a bit of English and speaks Spanish at home. Her father has an
associates degree in computer science, he speaks English and Spanish fluently. Sarais 2 oldest
siblings both have college degrees and work fulltime. Her other 3 siblings currently attend
college and 2 work part-time.
Sarais family currently rent the home in which they live in. Located in a low-income
neighborhood. Her family is considered low-income but do not receive any government
assistance. She has a healthy, loving home life.
Sarai is an active, healthy young girl. She enjoys reading and writing; in school, she had
the highest accelerated reading points in her grade and reads at two grade levels above her grade.
She likes to learn and is fascinated with learning facts about the world and other countries. She is
very creative and imaginative, writing her own stories and comic books. She plays with Legos,
where she creates her own worlds. Sarai likes to play video and computer games.
In school, Sarai does exceptionally well, achieving high scores in all subjects. She
struggles a bit in mathematics, but receives a lot of help and support from her family. She was
part of a garden camp over the summer that she enjoyed. Education is a big focus in her family
as all the children strive to achieve and succeed in their schooling. Sarai is expected to go to
college and study a field that she likes; Sarai has expressed interest in the field of science as well
as history, womens history and studies.
Physical Development
Sarai is a growing child. She is physically active and enjoys playing outside. She is of
average height and weight for a nine-year-old child. She is full of energy and always moving.
She loves playing tag and running around with her dog. Although she is exactly where her body
needs to be physically, she doesnt have the best eating habits and therefore she is on the higher
end of what her weight should be to be considered healthy.
At school, she struggled a bit with Physical Education class as she is unable to do push-
ups or sit-ups. Sarai pushes herself to do better and can stay active. She is a growing girl just a
few years away from hitting puberty. As she is growing she is learning about her body and how
it should be healthy. She is bettering her eating habits and tries to get some sort of physical
activity in as much as possible.
Sarai describes herself as a healthy, fast growing child, as she just went through a growth
spurt. She eats sufficiently at every meal and knows what are healthy choices for her. She has a
positive self-image and is happy with her appearance. She is currently at that age where her body
is changing and developing in different ways. She is aware of the changes and has a good
understanding of what is happening. She is growing rapidly and the changes are obvious, though
she is still confident in the skin that she is in.
Emotional Development
Sarais emotions are healthy and stable. She is loved and nurtured by her family and there
are rarely any big emotionally charged issues. Sarai expresses and communicates her emotions in
healthy ways. She is open about how she is feeling and rarely is there ever a need to make her
open. She expresses happiness and anger equally.
Majority of the time Sarai is a calm child. Sarai is cheerful when doing activities that she
likes such as reading, drawing and playing with toys or video games. She understands sharing
and playing nice with her nephew. When she plays with dolls and stuffed animals, she creates
stories and worlds of happy families. She enjoys peacefully reading books and using her
imagination to write and draw.
As she lives with her seven-year-old nephew, they spend a lot of time together playing
and even attend the same school. She does show some jealousy though, since her nephew gets
new toys often from his father and she doesnt get new toys as often. She compares herself to her
nephew, saying that she likes certain things more than him or that she knows or does something
better than he does, which is normal for her age. Per our text, as children get older, they also tend
to use social comparison to evaluate and judge their own their own abilities (Borg & Slavin,
2012).
She behaves and reacts to situations normally. When she is happy she is cheerful, when
she is sad she tends to want to be alone and is rather quiet. Sarai shows signs of good emotional
health. She shows her anger by pushing others away, refusing to talk and cry if something
bothers her. She understands her emotions and knows how to express them accordingly. Though
preadolescents are generally happy and optimistic, they also have many fears. Anger is a
common emotion at this age and is displayed with more intensity than many other emotions.
(Slavin, 2012).
She has a journal that she keeps her private thoughts in and shows signs of a positive self-
image. She describes herself in positive terms and sees herself as a pretty, smart, funny young
girl. She holds herself to her own personal standards and expects others to respect her and treat
her per her self- worth. She has positive self-esteem and self-concept. Self-concept includes the
way in which we perceive our strengths, weaknesses, abilities, attitudes and values (Slavin,
2012). Sarai is overall a happy, healthy nine-year-old.
Social Development
Sarai describes herself as a social and friendly child. Along with her nephew being her
closest friend, she has friends from school that she stays in contact with. She expresses her
friendships and her feelings towards them in healthy ways. She has a best friend whom she talks
with a lot and plays online with. As children enter middle childhood, friendships become more
stable and reciprocal. At this age, friends are often described in terms of personal traits and
friendships are based on mutual support, loyalty and mutual give-and-take (Slavin, 2012).
She makes friends easily and is nice to everyone she meets; however, she faces some
challenges. She has a high opinion of herself that sometimes causes problems between her and
her peers because they do not respect her as she wants to be respected. Sarai holds herself to high
standards. She believes that she is very intelligent and wants to be viewed in that way by
everyone she meets. Because of this she has trouble with others picking on her and bullying her a
bit Taunting, harassment, and aggression toward weaker or friendless peers occur at all age
levels, but can become particularly serious as children enter early adolescence (Slavin, 2012).
Sarai knows not to be mean or disrespectful to others and therefore feels hurt when others
dont treat her nicely. She is picked on a bit due to her wanting to always know about everything.
She deals with this bullying by trying to explain to others what they are doing wrong, and when
that doesnt work she simply requests that they leave her alone. She knows that she shouldnt let
this affect her and most of the time it doesnt, but of course there are times when she feels hurt.
Sarai is a smart girl and understands that not everyone will agree with her and so she doesnt
dwell on these things One of the important aspects of peer relations in middle childhood is peer
acceptance, or status within the peer group (Slavin, 2012).
Among her peers she loves to make new friends and always is willing to teach others and
share her interests with them. She says she was the one who introduced her friends to the Harry
Potter book series and has made friends just from that. Though she has her problems with others
at times she knows how to move on beyond that and doesnt let it affect her much.
Sarai finds social approval from her nephew constantly due to the amount of time they
spend together. In social settings, she knows how to behave and what is expected of her. She has
developed healthy friendships with her classmates and peers her age.
Intellectual Development
Sarai describes herself as an intelligent young girl. She loves to learn new things,
especially about other countries and the world. She has an interest in history and science and
hopes to grow up to be a scientist one day. She is aware of the world that she lives in and what
she does and why she does it. She thinks for herself and holds her opinions and morals highly.
She is doing great in school; she receives good marks in all subjects and is learning well.
Sarai struggles a bit with mathematics and understands that she learns it in a different way than
how she is being taught in school. She works hard to improve her math skills. Sarai is aware that
she learns things differently and knows how to ask for help when she needs it. She knows that
because she doesnt know how to do all her math correctly that does not mean that she is not
intelligent.
Sarai expresses herself well. She likes to engage openly in conversations of all topics.
She is very enthusiastic when she speaks and delivers her thoughts and ideas clearly and
effectively. She knows how to think of things and what to consider in her thinking and then
knows how to communicate what she is thinking. Sarai holds her ideas to high standards and
shows that through her creativity when writing or developing stories.
When learning new concepts, Sarai knows how to ask for clarification. She knows how to
process new information and then shows that comprehension by using the new-found knowledge
in her work and ideas. Sarai has a love for knowledge and learning. In her family, education and
learning are held to a high standard. She loves going to school and reading to learn more.
Sarai shows signs of understanding and intellectual development that is appropriate to
her age. She is at level with her peers in all subjects and surpasses them in reading and writing.
Sarai is exactly on tract to developing a healthy intellect.
 Sarai's PEPSI Graph
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90

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70

60

50

40

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20

10

0
Physical Emotional Philosophical Social Intellectual
Recommendations for Teachers and Parents

Sarai is a healthy child. She excels in her studies and is a good citizen. She displays sign
of a normal, well growing nine-year-old and is right in time with her development for her age.
She is outgoing and knows how to express herself and her emotions in healthy safe ways. She
can continue to grow and learn as she ages.
Sarai could benefit from seeing her father more often than now. She shows signs of
having attachment issues as she doesnt seem to show normal emotions towards her father. She
could also benefit from going through a form of therapy where she can learn new techniques on
how to deal with stress and anger, although it is not immediately necessary, but would be nice
for her. She could also use more physical activity. Perhaps her family could encourage her to
play outside more or go for walks, anything that gets her physically moving so that she maintains
a healthy body into adulthood.
Sarai benefits a lot by socializing with her nephew, however she does need to learn that
she cant always be everyones friend. Not everyone will like her or respect her, Sarai needs to
understand that it is not because something is wrong with her, just that others behavior towards
her is out of her control.
Overall, Sarai is a healthy child. She should continue focusing on school and doing well.
She has healthy habits and hobbies that perhaps her family can find ways to extend those habits
and make them more enjoyable as well as beneficial for her.
References
Borg, & Slavin, R. E. (2012). Social Emotional development during the Elementary years. In R.
E. Slavin, Education Psychology (p. 64). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Slavin, R. E. (2012). Educational Psychology. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.