Middle Childhood Observation Paper

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Recommended: Development stages of a child

My objective in writing this summary is to discuss my field experience observing a child in the middle childhood stage of development. Zacharias is a 7 year old student in the first grade at Jackson-Keller Elementary. I will discuss the developmental milestones Zacharias has reached, as well as those he has not yet accomplished. I will give recommended activities to assist with the student’s development.
Physical Development Milestones
Observing Zacharias on the playground, it was evident that he had reached several gross motor skills milestones for middle childhood. He could skip rope, play hopscotch, and do a jumping jack as most 7 year old children can do (Feldman, 2012). He participated in the bike rodeo showing his muscle coordination, …show more content…

Zacharias has not accomplished this milestone is his development. Due to his short attention span, he quickly loses focus during activities and assignments and frequently speaks of how he wants and misses his mother. This behavior is not typical for this stage as most children in middle childhood are less dependent on their families (CDC, 2016). Zacharias continues to maintain a strong dependency on his mother.
Zacharias does not seem to be in the concrete operational stage. According to Piaget, this stage occurs between 7-12 years (Feldman, 2012). When conducting the conservation experiment of pouring liquid from one container to another, Zacharias did not grasp the concept that the amount of liquid remained the same (Feldman, 2012). This is understandable because he is on the younger end of the age …show more content…

Zacharias has not reached this milestone. He has trouble pronouncing most words and is not easily understood by his teacher or peers. He also has trouble with pragmatics. Zacharias is asked to repeat back to the teacher instructions that were given to assist with clarifying his understanding. Zacharias is being considered for special services for his delayed speech and language development.
Social Development Milestones
Friendships are mainly with the same gender during middle childhood (CDC, 2016). Zacharias does not fall within this typical milestone. He interacts with both boys and girls during play in the classroom and on the playground.
According to Feldman (2012), “Almost one fourth of all children under the age of 18 in the United States live with only one parent” (p. 343). This is the situation with Zacharias. It is unclear how his family dynamic might impact his social life; however, as stated earlier, he has a heavy dependency on his

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