Olivia Cognitive Development

Tori Smoode

May 2, 2018

ECE 114- Final Paper

Professor Jones

1. When it comes to fine and gross motor skills I feel that Olivia was right on track or even slightly ahead, I noticed this mostly through the bead stringing activity they did during their morning work. Jean Piaget has tied the idea of motor development to the development of cognitive processes, which essentially comes from a child’s environment. I believe Olivia has great fine and gross motor skills because of her growing cognitive development. Olivia has a great home life with wonderful experiences which where her incredible reasoning and motor skills can stem from. As far as language development Olivia is very social, initiates conversation, and can construct proper sentences.

She really enjoyed playing with the baby dolls and quickly took to the role of being the mother. This shows me she understands the idea of role-playing and learning from her experiences and the roles around her environment. During Piaget’s preoperational stage children often like to make one thing, like a word or an object - stand for something other than itself. I noticed this the very first time I was observing Olivia. As Olivia was playing the mother she took her baby to the “grocery store” and while at the grocery store she picked up a banana and started using it as her cellphone to communicate with another student. This proved to me that Olivia is creative to satisfy what she is looking for while using the props that are available to

Like most students in her classroom, Olivia comes from a stable, well-structured, Catholic, and white family. When it comes to mental health, if a student is in a stable, well-structured, happy home they most likely aren’t very stressed out, have a lot of help out home, and for the most part, a set schedule. As for physical health, they probably spend a lot of time outside, open to a lot of opportunities and experiences and are probably on the right track when it comes to fine and gross motor skills. In a well-structured, young students probably have multiple learning tools and toys available to them, as well as dependable health resources like clean running water, and other things we often take for granted. Lastly, nutrition plays a vital role in a child’s ability to learn. If a child comes to school hungry they are not ready to learn, if they aren’t receiving the right foods they might not make it through the day. I believe Olivia is such a well-rounded student not only because of school but her very stable home life as