Case Study of a 3 Year Old Child

CHILD PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT: CASE STUDY

ELIZABETH LAI (81333921)

S9543877F

22 AUGUST 2017

1. Demographic Information:

The child I would be observing is a 3 year old born Chinese-Malay female toddler called Katrina Tok. She has waist length jet black hair, huge round eyes and is taller than the females in her school but around the same height as the males. She is of acceptable weight for her age.

Katrina is an only child living in a 4 room HDB flat with her 28 year old single mother, who is working full time, her 23 year old aunt, her grandfather, her great grandparents and a domestic helper. They are an English speaking family.

Katrina was born without a fatherly figure as he left when he found out that her mother was pregnant with her. She has been surrounded by mostly females all her life and is not exposed to the presence of males very much. Katrina has also witnessed a fair amount of violence at home as her mother and grandfather fights with each other, both physically and verbally. This happens frequently.  

Katrina is currently in a mainstream childcare called PCF Sparkletots and spends most of her daytime there during the weekdays. In the evenings, she would spend her time with her mother at home or at the neighbourhood playground. During the weekends, Katrina would spend quality time with her mother by visiting water parks or having movie nights at home.

2a. Physical Development:

Katrina is physically active and likes running even in inappropriate settings and situations. She has once ran out of Toys“R”Us by herself and got lost in the mall. She also likes playing with water and enjoys going to public pools and water parks. She is interested in sand and toys that requires role playing such as the kitchen set where she would pretend to be a chef.

Katrina is capable of feeding herself with minimal mess. However, she is easily distracted and tends to get lazy during meals and wants someone to feed her. Being used to being fed by her domestic helper, it is no wonder she behaves this way. She is also able to dress herself with minimal help required. She can wear her undergarments and bottoms by herself and is able to identify which side of the garment is the front and the back. However, when it comes to putting on a shirt, help is required. Once her head is through the opening, she is then able to wear the shirt on her own by putting her arms through the sleeves.

Further observations indicated that when it comes to showering, Katrina still requires help. Even though she is able to do basic showering routines like lathering soap or shampoo on herself, the effort is still insufficient. Katrina is also toilet trained and knows how to pee in her potty. But she still wears diapers as she often poop in her pants without warning and would only announce that she needs to poop after soiling herself.

2b. Cognitive Development:

Katrina is able to read and identify alphabets and numbers up to 20 but is unable to read words. She can write the alphabets A-G and the numbers 0 and 1. Her speech is clear majority of the time but she is unable to pronounce the /s/ consonant in words like “snake”, “sticker” or “beast”. She can hold a proper conversation when engaged in one where she would give appropriate reactions and replies. However, she is not good with her mother tongue (Mandarin) as she is being brought up in an English speaking family.

2c. Social Emotional Development:

Katrina is generally loud and talkative when around people she is comfortable with. She is often shy and reserved when meeting new people but would start warming up to them in a matter of hours. She is extremely fond of her mother’s female friends and often prefers female adults than male adults. As observed, due to the lack of experience in interacting with male adults, she tends to react by crying and showing signs of discomfort when a male adult is around, often avoiding them.

When Katrina first started school, she would cry when she gets dropped off at school by any members in the household. She does not do it anymore but will still cry upon seeing her mother passing by the school or when her mother is the one dropping her off in the morning. For instance, her mother was returning from the supermarket one day when the school decided to bring the class for a visit to the nearby fire station. Upon seeing her mother, Katrina started crying and approached her mother for hugs, refusing to let go.  

In school, Katrina gets along well with her peers. She behaves differently with different kids based on their characters. If she is playing with a child who is docile and quiet by nature, Katrina will mimic the child’s behaviour by sitting and listening to class attentively. The same goes with the more boisterous children at school, Katrina will mimic them and misbehave in class. At the beginning, she showed signs of being anti-social as she would only play or sit by herself. But after her mother raised concerns to the teachers, they became more attentive towards Katrina’s social skills and tried to get her involved in group activities.

Katrina is also fond of babies and would always touch and caress the child on the face or head gently when she comes in contact with one. However, she has the tendency to bully other toddlers irregardless of the gender and often pushes them without warning. There were countless of incidents that had seen her pushing another toddler without a reason. One such occasion was when Katrina and her mother were in a crowded shopping mall when she happened to spot a female toddler about 2 metres away. She then ran towards the toddler and pushed her out of the blue causing the toddler to stumble. Recently, she actually sought for permission from her helper upon picking her from school on whether she could push one of her classmates.

Katrina seem to manipulate her mother in many situations. At home, when her mom is disciplining her, she would seek out for her great grandmother. Her great grandmother always interferes by picking her up, soothing her and asking her mother to stop reprimanding her. On the other hand, Katrina would comply to her mother's punishments, like facing the wall, when her great grandmother is not around but she would always lie about needing to relief herself in the toilet for attention or to get out of the situation. Her mother would also comply to her and take her to the toilet even though she knows that Katrina is bluffing. Katrina would also lie about needing the toilet when it is time for bed. When they are out, Katrina would always want to be carried and when her mother refuses, she would throw a tantrum and sit on the ground crying. Her mother would then have no other choice but to pick her up to avoid blocking the way of other people. If her mother refuses to pick her up, Katrina would then curl up into a ball on the ground and cry, not bothering if her mother walks away or not.