Child Development Report: Analysis of Victor's Development

This report presents an analysis of a child's development based on an interview conducted with Victor, a 10-year-old boy. The report explores Victor's cognitive abilities, moral development, and family dynamics. It examines his responses to Piaget's conservation tasks, including conservation of matter, length, and number, to assess his stage of cognitive development. The report also analyzes Victor's drawing tasks and hypothetical reasoning skills. The interview revealed Victor's understanding of his family, his social interactions, and his self-esteem, providing insights into his overall development. Victor is found to be in the concrete operational stage, demonstrating an understanding of conservation and concrete thinking. His responses to questions about his family and the world around him highlight his moral development and critical thinking abilities. The report concludes with a self-evaluation of the interview process and its impact on the student's understanding of child development.

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Running Head: CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Child development
Author’s name:
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Contents
Background information..............................................................................................................................2
Piaget’s conservation task...........................................................................................................................4
Conservation of matter............................................................................................................................4
Conservation of length............................................................................................................................4
Conservation of number..........................................................................................................................5
Drawing task................................................................................................................................................5
Family portrait.........................................................................................................................................5
Hypothetical reasoning................................................................................................................................6
Self-evaluation.............................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography................................................................................................................................................7

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Background information
In my school age interview conducted on 7th may 2018 my interviewee was victor.
He lives in a family of 7, two parents and 5 siblings. Victor and his family are black Americans
and they come from Nigeria. Victor has two sisters Zita and Zimba and two Brothers Michael
and James. Victor was born on 4th April 2008; he is 10 years and one month old.
Victor’s mother is nurse and his father is trader, they family live together.
According to Victor growing up in a family with brothers and sisters is the most interesting
thing; despite the conflicts that arise between the siblings, he loves them so much and he would
do anything for them. He loves it that he has brothers and sisters whom he can play with and
relate with. He dreads being away from them and he says they are the best company he has in the
whole world.

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Victor loves to play soccer and basketball; this gives his love for soccer and
basketball gives him the intrinsic motivation to be the best in the team (Hanus, 2015). He lives
at home with his father and mother apart from Zita his sister who is in college. His main chores
are cleaning his plate and watching his mother’s closet.
His parents don’t like it when someone tells lies or when they don’t do their chores.
He dislike that he keeps fighting with his siblings who keep on taking his things and he finds it
unfair that his father does not give them more than $2 to school.
The rules at his house are there is no television on Monday and Thursday, but they
are allowed to watch on Fridays and during the weekends. His best friend is John, they do
everything together and he would tell his parents if John did something wrong. This indicates
that he has a good social conservation, because he has friends and his moral development is
good because he can tell when they are doing bad things (Lapsley, 2018). Victor thinks that his
mother is very mean because she doesn’t let them play with her phone and she takes away his
games and never returns them. Victor never fights and he doesn’t like that his mother is always
sad and mean. He would not correct her because he is afraid he would not get things from her.
He dislikes it that Mr. Thosman gives him assignment every week. He believes that
a lady teacher in school likes him but he does not know the reason why. He likes it that he plays
soccer and basketball and he dislikes bullying (Merrell, 2014). Victor does not belong to a club
apart from his soccer team, he is popular in the team because he plays good and is fast and this
gives him a good self-esteem because he knows he is valued by the team (Brown, 2014).

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Victor believes that killing people is bad and they should be jailed, he would not
love to go back to Nigeria because of the war and killing of people this shows that he has good
morality. His brother Michael gives him the extrinsic motivation to play soccer by training
him; he says he is his hero (Lemos, 2014).
Piaget’s conservation task
According to Piaget’s theory children at the age of 7-11 have fully developed
the ability to think concretely (Watanabe, 2017). They can tell the difference in mass, numbers,
shapes, length and weight. The rate of concrete development is not equal in all children some are
able to think concretely before others but the range is 7-11 years (Börnert-Ringleb, 2018).
Conservation of matter
On taking two rolls of clay and rolling them into two balls and asked Victor which had
more clay his response was they both have equal amount of clay. I later took one of the roll and
rolled it into a snake, and I asked him the same question again, his response was that they both
had the same amount of clay.
According to his age Victor is at the concrete operational stage in the Piaget’s
development theory. At this stage he can think concretely and he can tell the difference between
shapes and mass. He can tell that the amount of clay is the same even if the shape is different.
Conservation of length
I showed victor two unsharpened pencils together and asked him about their
length, h said they had equal size in length. Later I took one pencil and moved it and asked him
what the length of the two pencils was, he took a while and his response was the two pencils had

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the same length. He could think concretely that the two pencils are equally shaped; the only
difference is they are placed separately on the same surface.
Conservation of number
On conservation of numbers I arranged coins on two lines and established that
they were equal in number, I then altered one row and spaced the coins and asked him if the
coins were still equal in number and his response was “they are equal only that you have re-
arranged them”. At his age he can think concretely and tell that the two rows have an equal
number of coins.
Drawing task
I asked Victor to draw an image of his choice, either a man or a woman. Victor chose to
draw a man because men are strong and he was too. His requirements were to draw an image
head to toe. He scored 38 points on the drawing. This number divided by 4 was 9.5 on adding 3
and Victor’s age which was 10 the results were 22.5. A 22.5 was not a bad score in relation to
his age. Victor is clearly not interested in drawing, but he can draw good image with all the
details of a man including the clothing. His gross motor skills are well developed (Payne, 2017).
Family portrait
On drawing the family portrait, Victor included everyone in the family, his father
was the biggest followed by his mother. However in the portrait everyone was smiling with an
exception of his mother whom he said “most of the time she is sad”. He drew his brother
Michael slightly bigger than the rest of his siblings and he said he was his hero.

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Hypothetical reasoning
I asked Victor if fire was alive he said that it was not alive, because if it was alive
it would be able to talk. I asked him another question if a puppet was alive and his response was
yes, because they are always barking. This demonstrated his critical thinking abilities which
were good (Watanabe, 2017).
Self-evaluation
The purpose of this assignment was to help us understand the different family set
up in our community. I was able to learn how families relate and how it impacts on their children
development different rules that apply in different families, because no family is the same. My
greatest achievement was elating with a 10 year old who knows nothing about me.my greatest
was listening actively to Victor talk. The challenge faced was getting the relevant information.
Conducting such interviews enables the students learn how different family set up
impact children growth and development. I believe I scored 40 points in this assignment.
Summary
Victor is a 10 year old boy who can relate and interact with his environment in a
way that triggers learning to take place. This implies that victor has good perspective thinking.
Victor’s mother is nurse and his father is trader, they all live together with hi five siblings and
parents, except his sister Zita who is in college. According to Victor growing up in a family with
brothers and sisters is the most interesting thing; despite the conflicts that arise between the
siblings, he loves them so much and he would do anything for them. He loves it that he has
brothers and sisters whom he can play with and relate with. He dreads being away from them and

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he says they are the best company he has in the whole world. He is an outdoor and social child
who loves to play soccer and basketball.
During my interview I deduced that Victor has a good moral development, he has
been brought up by his parents in a good and healthy way, because he can tell the difference
between good and bad (Lapsley, 2018). This is supported by the fact that, on asking him the
vices of this world he replied by saying killing and he also verbalized that he would tell on his
best friend if he did something bad. Victor knows that he should do his chores on time. He also
adheres to the television rules set by his parents and he is not a rebellious child.
He is self-aware and self-conscious of himself and those around him. He is aware that
he has siblings who they fight with from time to time but make up. According to him his siblings
are the source of his extrinsic motivation, this is because he idolizes his big brother Michael as
his hero, because he teaches him soccer and this gives him the motivation to play soccer in
school (Brown, 2014).
Victor gets intrinsic motivation from his love for soccer and basketball and his love for
human life. His self-esteem is boosted by the fact that he is among the best and the fastest in his
soccer team. Scientifically this gives him good self-esteem, extrinsic motivation which in turn
triggers intrinsic motivation to strive to be the best (Lemos, 2014).
He has good critical thinking skills, which were best exhibited when I asked the
hypothetical question and he could tell that a puppy was alive but the fire was not. He has good
gross motor skills because he could draw the image of a male human correctly even if it was not
affecting (Börnert-Ringleb, 2018) and he engages in outdoor play efficiently (Payne, 2017).

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His parents are authoritarian who have taught him the importance of adhering to
rules and the importance of being morally upright (Lapsley, 2018).
According to Piaget’s theory victor is within the age bracket of children who can
process information in a concrete operational way, because he can relate the difference and
equality of shapes correctly. This was deducted from the Piaget’s conservation task whereby he
answered all the questions correctly (Watanabe, 2017).

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Bibliography
Börnert-Ringleb, M. (2018). The Association of Strategy Use and Concrete-Operational Thinking in
Primary School. In Frontiers in Education, 3, p38.
Brown, J. D. (2014). Self-esteem and self-evaluation: Feeling is believing. Psychological perspectives on
the self, 8(4), 27-58.
Hanus, M. D. (2015). Assessing the effects of gamification in the classroom: A longitudinal study on
intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance.
Computers & Education,, 80, 151-161.
Lapsley, D. K. (2018). Moral psychology. Routledge.
Lemos, M. S. (2014). The relationships between intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and
achievement, along elementary school. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Merrell, K. W. (2014). Social skills of children and adolescents: Conceptualization, assessment, treatment.
. Psychology Press.
Payne, V. G. (2017). Human motor development: A lifespan approach. Routledge.
Watanabe, N. (2017). Acquiring Piaget’s conservation concept of numbers, lengths, and liquids as
ordinary play. Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology,, 1(7), 210.

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