Interesting Child: A Case Study

Interesting Child: A Case Study

Davon Campbell

Buena Vista University

Interesting Child: A Case Study

Background of Child

To start, Dorian is one the most energetic, upfront, and street-smart

kids I have ever met. He is a 9-year-old African-American student that

attends Johnson STEAM Academy. Academically, Dorian is average; he excels

in Math but struggles a little in reading. Just like every boy he is very active

and loves to use his creative abilities to build things out of Legos and

household items. This may be due to his straightforward, logical, and

analytical personality. Dorian is a very loyal and dependable person and this

shows through in his interactions with others, where he developed trusting

relationships.

He was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois and recently has been

residing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for over a year now. He comes from a single-

parent household with his mother Sharon and sister Shemiyah. Sharon, never

married and has experienced a lot of relationship issues and sudden life

changes that caused her feelings of loss and deficit, plus it forced her into

some major life adjustments. She expressed hoq she always felt a lack of

family and community support, which was one of the major reasons she left

everything behind to move to Iowa for a new beginning.

Sharon conveyed that Dorian and Shemiyah have always had

behavioral problems that required extra support at every school they

attended. She believes these issues come from a combination of

environmental, misattunement, and inherited problems related to their

family and upbringing. Throughout Dorians enrollment at Johnson, Sharon

Interesting Child: A Case Study

has been very active in order to ensure her son is provided an appropriate

medical and educational plan based on his special needs. As a result, school

officials have tackled Dorians case holistically to provide him with

comprehensive support that also considers his family, community, and

cultural frameworks.

Due to family, school, and community collaborations, Dorian has

received many evaluations. As a result, key stakeholders were able to

identify and diagnose him and provide appropriate services and treatment to

promote positive outcomes. His problems in school, home and community

environments; behavioral issues; lack of remorse; stems from many powerful

environmental influences.

Following intensive evaluations, Dorian was diagnosed with Attention-

Deficit Hyperactivity disorder, combined type; Conduct disorder, childhood-

onset type; and oppositional defiant disorder. Providing for these

circumstances have made Dorians case interesting and challenging for

educators and his parents. All things considered, this case study will examine

Dorians development regarding these issues from an ecological framework

in the perspective of the mother and child.

Ecological Framework

Bronfenbrenners theory of human ecology claims people take different

paths in the way they adapt to a life which influences human development.
Interesting Child: A Case Study

He argues that human development occurs throughout one's life and that is

it influenced by our immediate environment. He argues that our environment

consists of the community, institutions, and cultural and social practices that

provide these experiences. These cultural, social, and environmental

characteristics are viewed as interacting among one another while

influencing human development.

Bronfenbrenner describes proximal processes to explain things that

can affect human development. He illustrates how the home environment

could either slow or support a child ability to learn, and how spending time

with ones children helps build self-confidence and personal responsibility. He

also talks about how parenting styles play a significant role in a child's

development and how well that child assimilates into society.

He then provides a framework that consists of subsystems to indicate

how cultural, social, and environmental characteristics interact and influence

one another. Patterns of proximal processes and the immediate environment

are seen to interact on different levels known as the microsystem,

mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. These various structures

provide different approaches how specific variables influence the developing

person.

Microsystem

Before moving to Iowa, Dorians mother and sister lived on the west

side of Chicago. Sharon discussed how raising her kids there kept her in a
Interesting Child: A Case Study

consistent state of worry due to the high crime rate and lack of

opportunities. Even though a majority of her family lived there, she received

little to no support and had to juggle multiple jobs. There was a lack of social

mobility that kept their family stuck in a constant struggle to make an honest

living and climb the social ladder. She noted how the people Dorian

interacted with dealt with everyday constraints of poverty and lacked a

growth mindset. He was raised in an environment where there were more

drug dealers than mentors; more violence and gang mentality behavior than

good ethical behavior. He attended a low-performing which lacked the

recourses to provide a positive learning environment and quality learning

experiences. As a whole, there were a lot of barriers that influenced his

attitudes and interactions with his peers and other people.

Mesosystem

In Chicago, since Sharon was always working trying to provide for the

family, she wasnt home the majority of the day to guide, support, and

provide Dorian unconditional love. His older sister often had to step up and

look after him until his sharon got home. Their relationship continues to be

strained from their love/hate connection that causes them to fight and argue

with each other on a daily basis. Dorian lacked a stable home environment

that would have provided some structure and sustainability in his life.

He expressed how back in Chicago he liked hanging out with his

cousins to run the streets and go to the basketball court where everyone
Interesting Child: A Case Study

went. Discussing his parents, he revealed that his father would show up

randomly to stay for a week and just leave. He usually saw and interacted

with his father only on holidays and special occasions. Sharon highlighted

how two had a history of unresolved issues that always led to a fight or

verbal altercation. Dorian grew up watching this kind of behavior which he

then began to exhibit toward his peers and teachers at the school. A majority

of the time, his grandmother was the one who responded to school calls and

disciplined him for bad behaviors. Until this day, she is one person he highly

respects and obeys.

Exosystem

The move to Iowa intensified Dorians aggressive and intentionally

defiant behaviors. Residing in Iowa, he no longer could do the things he did

back in Chicago. He didnt have his cousins to run around with or his

grandmother to keep him grounded. In the school and community, he was

consistently challenged and held accountable for his actions. This

interruption to his freedom and lack of responsibility caused conflicts that

affected his socialization into his new school and community.

To cope, for months at a time Dorian continued to disrupt classroom

learning, bully other students, and harass and disrespect teachers. The

relocation led to more problems at home with his older sister. His patterns of

aggressive, destructive, and deceitful behavior exposed how irritable and

unremorseful he could be to others. In the school environment, Dorian

Interesting Child: A Case Study

tended to be impulsive and go against any rules implemented by adult

figures. This transition had an indirect effect on him due to the imposition of

more structure, responsibility, and accountability within his environment and

interactions with others.

Macrosystem

Coming from a low socioeconomic background, Dorian was faced with

many barriers that could have had potential implications on his

development. As an African-American growing up in poverty, there was a

lack of family structure that creates generational patterns among these

inner-city communities. These children, coming from a single parent

household, are at a disadvantage. Due to cultural variations. youth from low

socioeconomic families are more likely to be abused or neglected, have

academic troubles, to drop out of school, and lack the developmental support

they need. Sharon regrets not being able to adequately provide for her

children and this has caused her a great deal emotional stress. She

mentioned that Dorian has been exposed to many adulthood experiences

that no child should ever experience.

Chronosystem

Sharon noted feelings of oppression also had an adverse impact on

her family and children. Sometimes she felt powerless living in a world that

she felt shut out of and disrespected. At times, she felt she had no control
Interesting Child: A Case Study

over her life and that had many implications on Dorians upbringing. They

often had to live their daily life with fear and anxiety. They grew older and

realized how dangerous and vulnerable they are within their home

environment. Being familiar with these circumstances can help understand

the many behavioral and social costs due to how Drain perceives society,

and how hit has affected his development in relationships with others.

Moral Development

Dorians development regarding behavioral issues can be related to

Kohlbergs stages of Moral Development. Kohlbergs theory suggests that the

reasoning behind a persons actions can be explained from a persons

decision-making process. Ones decisions and behavior are seen to change

as they mature.

The first level, pre-conventional morality, suggests a person dont have

an understanding of morality. These moral standards are shaped by adult

figures and through a process of being held accountable. At the conventional

level, a person began to internalize moral standards through trusting

relationships and societal rules. Lastly, post-conventional morality stage

moral reasoning is based on individual choices and freedom. Kohlberg argues

only a few makes it to this level of thinking that require one to internalize

others views while being able to apply moral views personally. A person

can only progress through the stages in the order that they are listed.
Interesting Child: A Case Study

In the context of Dorians moral development, he lacked the

environment and experiences to learn obedience and respect for

authoritative figures. As the pre-conventional level suggest, Dorian may not

have developed an understanding of morality. He doesnt have the skills to

distinguish adequately between other peoples viewpointshe can only

focus on his own. Also, his cultural background lacked the social norms to

teach him how to establish healthy relationships and be productive student

and citizen. Dorian lacked the awareness of societys set of moral guidelines

and they did not fit into his self-perception of morality. These issues may

have had clear implications on his moral development and led to the

negative behaviors he demonstrates when presented with a dilemma.

Interesting Child: A Case Study

Reference:

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and

Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.