Caleb Appiah Agyeman's Case Study

Caleb Appiah Agyeman was born on March 24th, 2015 at 3:25 am at Christ Hospital, located in Jersey City, NJ. Caleb was born two weeks before his original due date, April 4th, making him a preterm delivery. He was born a relatively healthy baby. The only complication at his birth was his mother having a cesarean section. The cesarean section was scheduled prior to his birth because his mother had a previous cesarean section with her second child. The male was born into a family of four, including his father, mother and two older siblings whom are both female. Being the last born of his family, and considering the seventeen-year age gap between him and his oldest sibling, Caleb is showered in love and surrounded by a vibrant family whom hail

from the beautiful country of Ghana.
Caleb exhibits the first stage, also known as trust versus mistrust, of Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory.

His current age is a critical stage to know whom to trust and whom not to trust. Caleb has shown signs of this stage by being very friendly to those who care for him and aloof toward strangers, until they prove otherwise. Considering his age, Caleb also falls into the first stages of many other theories. By my observations, he fits the description given by each theorist. Based on Freud's Psychosexual theory, Caleb enjoys pleasuring his mouth. Everything that is given to him, whether edible or an inanimate object, will go into his mouth and he is delighted when doing so. Despite being told take the items out of his mouth, he continues with this act of pleasure. This sense of curiosity also explains a stage in Piaget’s Periods of Cognitive Development. This stage is called Sensorimotor, and it describes how Caleb uses his five senses to understand the obscure world around

him.
In the case of his Biosocial development, Caleb has shown tremendous progress. He has reached countless developmental milestones common for other infants in his age group. At the time of his birth, he weighed six point eight ounces. He currently weighs twenty pounds and is twenty-six inches tall. According to the World Health Organization Growth Chart for Boys (Birth - Two years) in the United States, this places him in the seventy-fifth percentile for weight and height. This data collected means that Caleb is above average compared to other babies in the baby population. Caleb has presented both fine and gross motor skills seen in other infants the same age and his brain development and senses have been relatively normal. Unlike when he was a newborn, Caleb is now able to focus on people and objects considering his sense of vision has improved greatly due to binocular vision, which developed around the third month of infancy. The infant is also able to respond to someone calling his name by turning towards the person. As mentioned before, Caleb’s motor skills, have improved over the course of time. He can roll over and the is able to sit up unsupported at the age of seven months, which, according to the Developing Person Through the Life Span (Berger, 2011, p.139) is the time frame ninety-five percent of infants are able to master the skill.
Due to the fact that his family hails from another country, with a different type of culture, there is a great chance that his family will not teach him how to crawl. In his household crawling is not encouraged. In fact, by the time Caleb was four months old, his mother had purchased a walker and would let him sit in it for a short period of time in an obstacle-free environment; in hopes that he would become more accustomed to the practice. At the age of seven months when Caleb is held up with his feet planted on the floor, he instinctively moves one foot forward. This action can be a result of the experience with the walker or it can be a case of the stepping reflex, that usually disappears two months into infancy, making a return that occurs due to movement patterns (Siegler, DeLoache, Eisenberg, 2011, p.194). As for his fine motor skills Caleb is able to grasp on to items and transfer them to his other hand. He can bring his foot to his mouth and happily chew on his shoes.
Since the parents of the infant are pro-vaccine, Caleb has been up to date with his vaccinations.

Though I was unable obtain his immunization records, in consonance with the CDC (2015, p.1), Caleb should have received three doses of Hepatitis B, two doses of Rotavirus, three doses of DTaP, two doses of Hib, three doses of PCV13, and three doses of IPV. (CDC, 2015, p.1) His mother does not encourage the influenza vaccine considering that the shot can be ineffective at times. The vaccines he received have supplemented the lack of antibodies he received from only bottle-feeding. Though the World Health Organization (2015, p.1) recommends that infants be fed exclusively with breast milk for the first four to six months. Caleb only was breastfed until the age of four months because he preferred the bottle. Since he did not receive any antibodies, which as stated in the American Pregnancy Association article is “only found in breast milk” (American Pregnancy Association, 2015, p.1), it is expected that he can easily become sick, however Caleb is a relatively healthy baby. Although there was a time he had fallen ill, it was only due to a change in weather. It is too soon to determine whether this lack of breast milk will affect Caleb in the future, but as of now, he is doing well. He has been slowly introduced to solid foods and has a diet consisting of formula mixed with Gerber cereal and stage one baby food. The child is a difficult and fussy eater. Majority of the time his

mother has to force-feed him to make sure he gets his nutrients. Considering that Caleb was fortunate enough to be born in a first-world country, the chances of him suffering a nutrient deficiency is slim to none.
Caleb discerns and acquires information through the use of his senses and motor skills. Caleb has made progress in his cognitive development as well. Currently, he is in stage three of Secondary Circular Reactions, identified in the text as “[...] making interesting sights last: responding to people and objects. [...]” (Berger, 2011, p. 154). This was witnessed when a family member would play a simple hand game with the infant. He would laugh with joy, encouraging them to continue with the action until he would become bored and turn away to focus on the next object that piques his interest. Caleb has yet to grasp the concept of object permanence; when there is something he wants that he should not have, it is easy to distract him by simply placing the item behind the couch. This will not continue for long since as cited in the textbook object permanence occurs around the age of eight months in infants. A skill Caleb has had a great deal of practice with recently is language. In the morning the infant wakes up his household with repeating phrases such as “dada” and “mama”. There are days when the infant enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice and other days where he would barely make any noises. His family appreciates the latter more, since it is rare to have a day without hearing his voice. Despite this, his babbling is encouraged and he is spoken to as if he has a grasp on the English or Twi dialect. Growing up in a bilingual family, Caleb will be expected to understand the English language and as well as Twi since he is exposed to both on a daily basis.
Caleb, though only seven months old, has displayed an array of emotions credited to his emotional development. Caleb does not have much of a social smile to others unless it is a familiar face. Around his family and trusted friends, he is more than willing to be sociable, however to strangers, he often gives a blank stare. His unusual behavior is a sign of stranger wariness, which is an emotion that develops around nine to fourteen months according to Berger (Berger, 2011, p. 181). I discovered that the emotion of sadness had appeared when the baby was scolded for doing something wrong and automatically poked out his lower lip and began to cry. This had not occurred before, nevertheless emotional development is essential and the family began to prepare themselves for these new emotions. So far, they have been giving him affection and attention helps when he is saddened. Caleb has yet to grasp the concept of self-awareness, which is the realization, that one’s body, mind and actions are separate from those of other people (Berger, 2015). Nonetheless, gets excited when he sees an image of himself in the front view camera of his older sibling’s phone.
As Caleb grows, his attachment with his mother changes. Previously, he would be described as a type A, insecure-avoidant, attachment because he would be nonchalant whether left alone with his mother or not. This is because she would go to work and he would be in the care of a baby sitter. Since his mother has been home for a few months, his anxiety grows whenever he is left in the room momentarily and he would begin to whine in order to get the attention he wants. Once his mother returns, he would smile and return to what he was doing previously classifying himself as a type B, secure, infant attachment. His mother is a proximal parent, so Caleb is used to being held close and constant loving. This attachment may prove to be an issue when he enters into daycare, but his parents believe he will grow out of it.
All in all, my subject for this paper has proven to meet all the milestones normal for his age and his growth is progressing nicely. Caleb is a relatively healthy and cheerful infant with no apparent cognitive or physical delays in his development. It has been interesting to monitor and scrutinize his growth in comparison to the norms. I hope he continues to meet the milestones and develop properly.