Developmental Assessment

The child I chose to write about for this assignment is two year old Danjuma from Wayne, Ohio. He is the youngest of three children and attends an Early Head Start Program two days a week. The child’s parents have jobs; when the mother is working her sister takes care of Danjuma. The family has financial problems but don’t qualify for any type of public assistance.

Danjuma is twenty-four inches tall and twenty-eight pounds. He walks well and has good coordination; he can be seen running, jumping, creeping, crawling, and rolling. He can kick a small ball forward as well as catch a ball using is full body; he can also throw a ball overhand. At home he can turn doorknobs, get himself undressed, and can feed himself using eating utensils. At the Early Head Start Program Danjuma enjoys completing simple puzzles, scribbling, shaking rhythm instruments, manipulating clay, and different finger play activities. He loves washing his hands on his own but requires help at home due to the fact that he can’t yet reach the sink.

Like any child, Danjuma loves using his senses and motor skills to explore his world; he can be seen looking intently at his toys and food as if curious about them; he also still puts objects in his mouth to further explore what they are. When taken to a new place, Danjuma shows curiosity; his mother recently took him to the library for the first time. The child ran immediately to the children’s section, touching and looking at everything with enthusiasm. Danjuma did all of this again the next time he went to the library as if he was remembering about what he did the last time he was there.

This child recently got a shape sorter toy; he has been seen struggling to get the correct shapes in each hole. Wh...

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...nts and teachers.

The socioculture theory talks about how “…parents, caregivers, peers and the culture at large are responsible for the development of higher order functions.” Basically, the child in question is influenced by what goes on around him. He is read to a lot at home, so he has started trying to read familiar books on his own. He sees new opportunities every day to do something new that his friends are trying, so of course he has to try it too. He has also learned that the way he talks with his family is okay because they ‘translate’ everything he says to others that don’t understand him.

Works Cited

http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentecourse/f/sociocultural-theory.htm

http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/personality/section3.rhtml

http://www.education.com/reference/article/arnold-gesell-child-learning-development-theory/