Child Development

You will either a) need access to a child between the ages of ½ year and 12 years (don’t just grab a random kid off of the street, make sure that you know the parents and that you explain to them exactly what your project entails), or b) make up a fictional child between the ages of ½ year and 12 years. In this paper, you will address the child’s development with respect to several areas that we’ve covered in the developmental lectures. To start, you’ll want to describe the child in terms of:

Name, age, background information, and other general details,
Identity development (both past and current issues related to Erikson’s theory of identity development and Marcia’s theory),
Cognitive development (both past and current issues related to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development),
Attachment type (based on Ainsworth’s theory of attachment),
And moral development (based on Kohlberg’s theory)

After describing the above details, you need to test the child (or pretend to test the child if you’re using a fictional child) on a Piaget-related age appropriate struggle that they’re currently going through (e.g. object permanence). You need to describe their performance on this test, using terms from Piaget’s work to describe your findings and experimentation. You must also propose a few ways that you might be able to help the child master this challenge—or another cognitive challenge that they might be focused on—by building off of the theories and terminology of Lev Vygotsky.

In the end, you will earn points for providing the following information:

Your description of the child that you’re “testing”, with each section being between 1 to 3 paragraphs long
Your description of your “experiment” on the child, the child’s performance, what this indicates about his/her cognitive development, and how you might be able to help this child better understand the cognitive concept more effectively
Proper grammar, creativity, and depth of coverage in the paper
Properly formatted in-text citations and reference list (use APA Format)

Notes:

The written portion of the assignments (not the reference page) should be a maximum of three, typed, double-spaced, pages in length—do not mess with font size and margins to make your paper longer or shorter. You will not lose points for having a paper that is shorter than three pages, but if you are fulfilling all of the requirements, your paper will be at least two full pages.

Make sure that your paper is written as an expository essay. It needs to be coherent, with smooth transitions between topics, and it must be in essay form. You should not have different sections in your paper. There should also be no bullet points or other forms of separation in the paper.

Please write several drafts, spell check, proofread, and revise your work before submitting your assignment. You will not receive full credit if your assignment contains multiple grammatical, spelling, or stylistic mistakes. The University offers resources to help refine your writing. Your GSI will not be able to proofread drafts.

Papers must be entered into the appropriate submission page on the bcourses site before the START of your assigned section that the paper is due. Anything submitted after the start of that section—even 1 minute late—will receive 75% of the points earned for the paper. Work submitted over 1 week after the due date will not be accepted and will receive no credit. No make-up work or re-writes will be offered or accepted.