Running Head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES STUDENT PROFILE Carlquist 1

Individual Differences Student Profile

Mellissa Carlquist

Instructor: Tracey Meyerhoeffer

EDUC 205 Development/Individual Differences

Spring 2018
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Individual Differences Student Profile

Your mind works differently than everyone else’s, and no one seems to understand you.

Everything you do is wrong and usually leads to getting you into trouble. You are picked on for

being different and your only friends are those that are years younger than you because your

minds seem to work almost the same way. You are smarter than them, so you can be the boss.

But, at the same time, you both have the same mentality as each other. This describes George. In

this essay, I will talk about the way George’s mind works, how he is treated by family, friends,

and teachers, and how he learns at school and at home.

General Information

George is 11 years and 8 months old. He is a Caucasian male. He is the youngest of 7

kids. The oldest, is his sister Kourtney, who would’ve been 25 this year but she passed away a

long time ago. He is currently in 6th grade and has been struggling all year with being in Jr. High.

He was diagnosed with autism in 2017 and, also, with ADHD. ADHD stands for attention-

deficit hyperactivity disorder which involves inattention, impulsivity, and excessive motor

activity causing academic and social problems (Berk and Meyers, 2016). He is a happy kid most

of the time, unless he doesn’t get his way. His moods can change very quickly, and his temper

flairs up quite frequently. But, he is always quick to forgive and move on. He is what Alexander

Thomas and Stella Chess would call a difficult child (Berk and Meyers, 2016). He is a

momma’s boy and clings to her for support. She is the only one that seems to give him what he

wants and needs all the time. She is so patient with him and truly loves her little boy. He lives

with his 16-year-old brother, 13-year-old sister, and his parents. His other siblings have gone to

college.
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He gets up at 5:30 every day for school, catches the bus around 7 a.m., and is in school

from 7:45 a.m. until 3:45 p.m. He then goes home with his older sister, who is in 7th grade, and

waits for their mom to get home from work. George loves to watch TV or play games on his

mom’s old phone. He usually eats dinner around 8 p.m., takes a shower, and is in bed by 9:30

p.m. on school nights. During the summer and on weekends, his bedtime is extended to around

10:30 p.m.

Physical Development

George has dark brown hair, big, dark brown eyes, and freckles all over his little face. He

is very small for his age. He weighs maybe 80 pounds and is barely 5 feet tall. He doesn’t have

any birth marks, but he does have some scars from accidents he has had in the past. His physical

health is very normal besides him being small. He played football and wrestled this last fall and

did very well with it. His vision and hearing are perfect.

George is right handed. His gross motor skills are great. He walks and does things

normally. However, his fine motor skills are not very good. He meets with therapists that have

taught him how to hold his pencil, his fork, and even how to use scissors properly. His therapist

uses goal-directed behavior meaning she uses certain actions, like learning fine motor skills, to

help solve simple problems (Berk and Meyers, 2016). Even with the therapy, he struggles a lot

with these fine motor skills. He doesn’t eat a lot either. He is pretty picky about what he eats, and

he doesn’t like to eat big portions of anything.

Cognitive Development

Currently, George is on a 504 plan. His mom is pushing to get him on an individual

education plan (IEP), but his school isn’t cooperating very well with it. He is in no special

classroom and does not receive much help. Because of this, he is failing every single class this
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year. His teachers don’t have the patience for him and don’t help him with things he doesn’t

understand. One teacher I talked to said he gave George a written test, and he got a 2% on it. He

called him back and gave George the same exact test orally, and he scored a 98%! George thrives

very well on what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development and being taught by

scaffolding meaning he needs guidance and support while doing different tasks. He has a very

low attention span and is bored very easily.

George thrives in science and math. He can remember random scientific facts so easily

and is intrigued by what doctors do. He can also do almost any math problem in his head and get

the right answer without showing any work on a piece of paper. According to Piaget, George

should be in the Formal Operational Stage. I would say he is more in the preoperational

stage-concrete operational stage.

Socio-emotional Development

George does not interact well with peers or adults very well. He is very good friends with

the kindergartners and first graders because they understand him differently than everyone else.

They are about on the same maturity level. The kids in his class pick on him quite frequently and

his mother gets many calls about him getting into fights because of these kids. George is very

loving, but his anger will get the best of him every time. I think his type of play would be

considered parallel play where he is near other kids his age and kind of doing the same thing,

but he’s not really socializing with them (Berk and Meyers, 2016). Most of the time it is more

like nonsocial activity where he just watches other kids (Berk and Meyers, 2016).

Summary, Conclusions, and Implications

I would say that George is not at a typical level of domain physically or mentally. He is

distracted very easily, so teaching him is a little difficult. Strengths he has are that he is very
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smart and knows a lot of things, he can do very well when he tries, and he is an absolute

sweetheart. His weaknesses are that he does not have high esteem, he is discouraged easily, and

he is different than most kids his age. I think teachers need to take this into consideration and

George could really thrive in his education.

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References

Berk, L. E., & Meyers, A. B. (2016). Infants, children, and adolescents. Boston: Pearson.