P. E. P. S. I.

Screening 1

Running head: P. E. P. S. I. SCREENING

P. E. P. S. I. Screening

Brianna Garcia

College of Southern Nevada

EDU 220 - 2001

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Abstract

Emma is the subject of this P. E. P. S. I. screening. She is six years old and a first grader. I

observed her and used credible sources to figure out where she stands developmentally in six

areas. I evaluated her based on her physical, emotional, philosophical, social, and intellectual

development levels. When rated against other children her age, she rated above average in her

physical and intellectual developmental levels. In her social development, she was below

average, and for her emotional and philosophical developmental levels, I found her to be right at

the average developmental level. I figured out her developmental levels by observing her when

talking to adult family members, when playing with other children her age, and when interacting

with her younger brother. To conclude my findings, I wrote recommendations for Emma and her

parents based on her developmental levels.

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P. E. P. S. I. Screening

Biography

Emma was born on May 5, 2014 and she is six years old. She has a younger brother who

is three years old. She enjoys being the older sister because she gets to boss her little brother

around and she gets to act very smart and all-knowing when conversing with him. She is

currently in first grade and likes attending online school. Her dream job changes often, although

currently she says she wants to be a teacher. She has many cousins that she loves playing with

and she enjoys traveling and adventure. She first went on a plane when she was one year and

two months old and she loves to go camping and hiking. She also enjoys jumping on her

trampoline and riding her scooter around the block.

Although she does love having fun outdoors, her current favorite pastime is using her

iPad. She plays Roblox and Among Us, and she loves watching YouTube and TikTok videos.

She has also just recently become interested in putting makeup on herself and painting her nails.

She is very friendly, but now that she has gotten older, she has gotten a bit more reserved and

shy when around new people.

As a baby, she loved dancing and laughing. At nine months old she could sign the words

milk, eat, more, water, and hungry. When she turned one, she learned how to talk, so she signed

words while speaking the words in English or Spanish. For example, she would sign more while

saying “mas” (more in Spanish), or sign water while saying “agua” (water in Spanish). She also

learned to walk at age one. Soon after learning to walk she started running and dancing.

Physical

For Emma’s physical developmental I would rate her as above average when compared to

other children her age, as seen in the graph below. Emma weighs 71 pounds, which is high
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above the average weight for a six-year-old girl and is considered overweight according to the

CDC growth chart for weight (2001). At the beginning of May, the month of her birthday, she

stood at four feet tall. Since then, she has grown an inch and a half, which according to Amy

Morin (2019), a social worker and writer for Verywell Family, is normal for six-year-olds

because they can grow up to two inches each year. Her height of four feet and one and a half

inches puts her in the 97th percentile when compared to her peers of the same age using the

CDC’s growth chart for stature (2001).

A characteristic of Emma’s physical development that is in range for her age is her

handwriting. In an article written for Kid Central, an organization that offers resources for

children, it explains that at age six, children are beginning to write with more precision and

control (Physical Development, 2018). I have noticed that when Emma is rushing through her

work, she writes in a scratchy, messy way, but when she is trying her best and writing calmly,

her handwriting looks neat and clear. Emma being able to switch between writing neatly and

messily shows me she is learning how to write with more precision and control. If she were not

learning, she would never be writing neatly.

The third aspect of her physical development that is normal for her age is how she feels

about losing. J’Anne Ellsworth writes that six-year-old children hate to lose at games (1999).

After observing her playing games with her brother and cousins, I noticed that she becomes

extremely disappointed when she is not the winner and gets angry once she notices that she is

losing. When she realizes she will not win a game, Emma will change the rules or make up new

rules that support her chance of winning.

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Figure 1: Graph comparing Emma's physical developmental level to other children her age.

Emotional

Emma’s emotional intelligence is maturing with her age. Six-year-old children are more

aware of theirs and others’ emotions. According to the CDC (2020), six-year-olds,“Have less

focus on one’s self and more concern for others” and they have learned better ways to talk about

feelings. I noticed Emma has reached this developmental level because she calls out her younger

brother whenever he is being unknowingly rude. When her brother says something mean to her

or others, she responds by saying “that was rude” and by telling him he should be nice and how

he could be nicer. She is getting better at noticing the behavior and actions of people towards

others and is starting to understand how to speak about how words can hurt someone’s feelings.

Because of her maturing emotional ability, Emma has also become more interested in

being independent, which is what most other six-year-olds want as well (Morin, 2019). Emma

asks to do more things for herself, like help make lunch or get herself ready for the day. Emma
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asks to pick out her own clothes and when she is not given the option, she gets defiant and will

refuse to wear the clothes picked out for her. This behavior is also normal for a six-year-old

because they have extreme emotions, they can be “loving one moment, hating the same person

the next” (Ellsworth, 1999). Emma can be incredibly happy and amicable in the moments when

she is getting what she wants but as soon as she is refused something, her mood changes. I

believe Emma is at the same developmental level as her peers in the same age group because all

the feelings she has exhibited having are normal for six-year-olds.

Figure 2: Graph comparing Emma's emotional developmental level to other children her age.

Philosophical

Emma’s philosophical thoughts have changed as she has aged. Emma, prior to this year

used to be excited about school and trying new things, but as she has gotten older, she has grown

to be more negative. J’Anne Ellsworth (1999) describes this as being characteristic of a six-year-
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olds philosophical level. She writes that a child at this developmental level will tend to express a

pessimistic view of life. Emma says things like “I’m bored.” or “That doesn’t sound like fun.”

when she has grown tired of what she is doing or when she is being made to do something she

does not want to do. She also has begun to express negative attitudes towards having to attend

school or do homework. On Sundays she will declare that she wishes it were still the weekend,

so she does not have to go to school the next day. I think this pessimistic attitude toward school

has flourished because she is being taught online, in her home, rather than at school.

Another example of Emma’s philosophical ability being within the normal range for her

age is that she, like most six-year-olds, is still operating using the morality of constraint. As Jack

Snowman and Rick McCown, the authors of Psychology Applied to Teaching (2015) describe,

one of the characteristics of being at this level is that these children believe rules should be

followed because they were established by those in authority. Emma, when she notices that

someone is breaking a rule, will tell them not to do so by saying “we can’t do that because

mommy said so”, or she will tell her brother “auntie said we can’t jump on the couch”. In these

examples she is explaining that the rules must be followed because an adult told her she had to

follow them. She does not understand why rules are necessary yet, she just knows that they must

be followed.

Moreover, Emma’s philosophical abilities have grown to include questions about how

the world works. She is starting to use her sponge-like mind to absorb information easier and

now she is beginning to actively seek out information and experiences, Age of Montessori, an

organization dedicated to teaching Montessori education explains (Stages of Development,

2019). Emma asks a lot more questions about how things work and what their uses are. The most

recent example of her seeking out knowledge and wondering how the world works, is when she
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asked how the stoplights worked. I explained as best I could, but she still had more questions,

like how the lights know there are cars in the street or if they work all day, even while we are

sleeping. In this example she is actively seeking out information by asking questions about the

world around her. Emma is becoming much more aware of her world and is curious about how it

works.

Figure 3 : Graph comparing Emma's philosophical developmental level to other children her age

Social

Socially, Emma is very talkative and playful. She loves hanging out with her cousins and

playing games and dress up with them. Through observing her play with others, I have noticed

that she has a difficult time adapting to her friends’ needs and admitting guilt, which is an

attitude that J’Anne Ellsworth (1999) writes is characteristic for a six-year-old. If somebody she

is playing with hurts her accidently or breaks a rule, she immediately expects an apology or for

them to fix their behavior. But when she makes a mistake and is told to apologize, she is
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reluctant to. She also has a difficult time adapting to her friends needs because she likes to be in

control and make the rules, which is also characteristic of six-year-olds, according to Ellsworth

(1999).

An aspect of her social development that has changed as Emma has gotten older is that

when playing, winning has become more important than using imagination. The American

Psychological Association (2017), writes that “play is no longer just fantasy play where

imagination is the key element; more often children choose rules-based games where the rules

are the key element and winning the game is more frequently the objective”. When Emma comes

to me with a game idea or when I observe her playing with children her age, I noticed that she

always feels the need to establish rules of how to play and how to win. She will also

occasionally bend or change the rules to ensure she will win. This separation from imagination-

based playing to rules-based playing, is also supported by the fact that she is starting to want to

play in groups rather than just by herself.

A characteristic of the social level of the average six-year-old that Emma has not

achieved is that children at this age, “become somewhat more selective in their choice of friends

and are likely to have a more or less permanent best friend” (Snowman & McCown, 2015). I

have not seen Emma become selective in her friends or talk about a having a best friend. I think

this is because she has been attending school online. She has not gotten to spend lengthy periods

of time with other children her age in order to make friends or get a best friend. I think she could

have been capable of achieving this level if she attended in-person school because while in

kindergarten, she always spoke about the other students in her class and talked about being

friends with them.

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Figure 4: Graph comparing Emma's social developmental level to other children her age

Intellectual

Emma is a child of average intelligence, according to the Scholastic article What Your

Child Should Know by Age 6 (2019). Emma knows all the things the article says she should. For

example, she can read simple books aloud, her favorite books to read are by Dr. Suess and she

can read and retell familiar stories. She is currently learning her third grade sight words because

has mastered her kindergarten, first grade, and second grade sight words and phrases, even

though she is only in first grade. Emma understands the different tenses, past, present, and future

and she comprehends the concept of time and weekdays. She realized it was getting close to

thanksgiving, so she asked what day it was on and started counting down how many days were

left, all by herself. She is also very capable of having “extended conversations with shifting

topics” and is able to talk on the phone with others (Scholastic, 2019). She has cousins who live
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in California and Arizona whom she calls and speaks to often. She talks to them about her day

and they play different games over the phone.

To test Emma’s intellectual abilities, I had her complete Piaget’s experiment that tests a

child’s ability to understand conservation of continuous quantity, she passed. Jack Snowman and

Rick McCown (2015) explain that when children are asked to explain why they think one glass

has more water over the other, even after they have already agreed the water in the two glasses

were equal, children six and above will respond that even though the taller glass looks like it

holds more water, they are actually equal. When Emma completed this experiment, she

responded the exact way Snowman and McCown wrote a child of her age would. She was able

to explain to me that the water in the two glasses where exactly the same amount even though

one looked like it did have more because it was taller. Her response tells me she understands the

concept of convention, just like other children her age do.

An aspect of her intelligence that I believe is at a higher level than the average six-year-

olds is the fact that Emma understands that inanimate objects are not alive. J’Anne Ellsworth

(1999) writes that it is more characteristic of seven-year-olds to verbally agree that inanimate

object are not alive, “that the sun does not move itself and clouds do not make the decision to

rain”. I observed that she was able to do this when she responded to her brothers’ statement that

the trees arms were moving by saying “no, the tree’s arms aren’t moving, the wind is moving the

branches”. She demonstrated to me that she is beginning to understand that inanimate objects,

like trees, are not alive. Because of this I believe she is at a higher rate developmentally

compared to other children her age.

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Figure 5: Graph comparing Emma's intellectual developmental level to other children her age

Recommendations

The recommendations I have for Emma are based on how she rated developmentally

compared to other children her age. She rates above the average six-year-old in her physical

development. Because she is considered overweight by the CDC, I recommend that she lose

weight so that she can move back into the healthy weight range for her age. She can do this by

exercising more, eating healthy meals, and spending less time on her iPad. She should also be

taught some strategies to cope with losing, so that she is more prepared to move on to the next

development level by the time she is seven.

Some recommendations to aid Emma in her emotional development is to motivate her to

become more aware of other’s feelings and her own. She should be encouraged to talk about her

feelings and ask questions about how other people feel. If she talks this aloud, she will be able to

understand that being empathic towards others is important and that the feelings she has are
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important. She should also be given more opportunities to be independent and do things for

herself.

Emma’s philosophical development is average for a child her age. As time passes, she will

become less pessimistic and will move on from thinking rules are only to be followed because an

adult said so, and she will be able to understand why we have rules. One thing that would help

Emma in her philosophical development, is for an adult to answer the many questions she has

about the way the world works. This will teach her about the world around her.

Socially, Emma rates below the average six-year-old. Some suggestions to aid her

development are to offer her some more opportunities to play with other children her age since

she is not able to because there is no in-person school. This could be accomplished by having her

play with her cousins that are her age. This will be a great outlet for her because she is a friendly

and energetic child.

Because Emma is rating at above average when compared to other children her age in her

intellectual development, she should be encouraged to keep this up. She should be given

opportunities to show off her intelligence. This will encourage her to keep learning. She should

also be encouraged to explain things to her brother when he has questions. This will allow her to

demonstrate her knowledge to keep her excited about learning. I also recommend that she be

given more difficult books to read, rather than just the ones at her grade level, since she has

already mastered her kindergarten through second grade sight words.

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References

American Psychological Association. (2017, June). Cognitive and Social Skills to Expect From

6 to 8 Years. Retrieved November 25, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/act/resources/fact-

sheets/development-10-years

Center for Disease Control. (2001, August 23). Growth Charts - Data Table of Stature-for-age

Charts. Retrieved November 25, 2020, from

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/html_charts/statage.htm

Center for Disease Control. (2001, August 23). Growth Charts - Data Table of Weight-for-age

Charts. Retrieved November 25, 2020, from

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/html_charts/wtage.htm

Center for Disease Control. (2020, March 06). Middle Childhood (6-8 years old). Retrieved

November 25, 2020, from

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/positiveparenting/middle.html

Ellsworth, J. (1999). Sixth Year. Retrieved November 24, 2020, from

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/ese504/class/pepsi/PEPSIObserv/year6.html

Morin, A. (2019, October 2). Everything You Need to Know About Your 6-Year-Old's

Development. Retrieved November 24, 2020, from https://www.verywellfamily.com/6-

year-old-developmental-milestones-620703

Physical Development: Ages 6-7. (2018). Retrieved November 25, 2020, from

https://www.kidcentraltn.com/development/6-7-years/physical-development-ages-6-7.html
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Scholastic Staff. (2019, July 25). What Your Child Should Know by Age 6. Retrieved

November 25, 2020, from https://www.scholastic.com/parents/family-life/what-your-

child-should-know-age-6.html

Snowman, J., & McCown, R. (2015). Psychology Applied to Teaching (14th ed.). Stamford, CT:

Cengage Learning.

Stages of Development and How Children Learn. (2019, July 05). Retrieved November 25,

2020, from http://ageofmontessori.org/stages-of-development-how-children-learn/