Kristin Montgomery 1

Clinical Observation
Kristin Montgomery
Coastal Carolina University

EDEC 332-01
Megan Mcllreavy
December 13th, 2019
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While observing three, four, five-year old’s in my field experience I chose one

male and one female to observe developmental milestones for throughout my time there. I am

going to begin by telling you briefly about each child so you will have some background context.

Child A is a four-year-old girl who is very smart but very quiet. She lives with her mother in

South Carolina and has an older sister who is 10. Her father is in her life but she never sees her

father because he lives in North Carolina. She is very advanced cognitively and physically but,

not very advanced emotionally. Child A is very smart for her age and is normal size for her age.

Child B is a three-year-old African American boy who has a speech problem. He lives in a house

with his mom in South Carolina. His dad is not in the picture so I do not know where his dad

lives at. His mother works two jobs while only supporting one child. My first week observing

him he did not speak at all and I didn’t really realize he was there. Child B is small for his age

and not as cognitively developed as the rest. He is emotionally developed more than most of the

children. I observed and recorded examples of physical, cognitive and social emotional

development for both child A and child B and documented my observations of their behaviors

with other children, teachers, and by themselves.

Child A is physically on target especially when it comes to fine motor development

skills. She showed high academic skills throughout my entire time observing her. I observed her

opening her milk every da. She would not only open her milk but she opened her milk before

everyone else. She could also eat her food with her fork or spoon without making a mess unlike

majority of the students. Child A is very independent and can button and unbutton pants, zip a

jacket, spell her name, write legibly, and read. Child A does a very good job at doing things for

herself but never helps other students do things, she barley talks to other students. Child B is

small for his age but it doesn’t hold him back physically. He finds ways to achieve his physical
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needs such as running the same distance as the other kids and being able to play on the same

recess equipment as the rest. Child B could catch, throw and kick a ball with ease and in a

coordinated way just as the rest of the boys can. A developmental milestone that I looked for was

his ability to run like the other students. Child B could run and he could run just as far as the

others. He could run from one end of the playground to the other with ease. He struggled every

day at breakfast and lunch opening his milk. Majority of the other students could open their milk

with help but he needed someone to open it completely. Child B could write his name but he

could not spell it out loud and it could have been due to his speech impairment. Although he can

write his name nicely he sometimes chooses to draw instead. The first time I observed child B

drawing was inside the classroom when the teacher instructed the students to write their names.

Child B does an okay job at cutting with scissors. One day the children were instructed to cut

around circles and with a little bit of help getting started he was able to cut around the circles.

What confused me as well as the teachers was how when we stopped showing him our attention

he took his nicely cut piece of paper and started cutting through the circles. I believe he began

doing this because we stopped showing him our attention. Although I had to look harder for his

fine motor development he was still on an appropriate level.

It was hard to observe where child B was at on a cognitive level. We had to find creative

ways to test his comprehension. Child B couldn’t really speak much because of his speech

impairment. Although when he did speak his sentences usually consisted of 5-8 words, they

usually consisted of ‘baby talk’. He would typically say things like “he no gives me ball” which

was very different from how the rest of the class spoke. While observing child B I concluded that

although he uses different words and phrases sentences in a way that isn’t developmentally on

track he is very aware of how to provoke other students. One day while at lunch he spilt his milk
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all of the table and then began crying and saying that another student did it. He expressed what

he was trying to say by crying and point at the other student. I watched him spill the milk

himself, look around, begin crying, and then blaming the other student. He can identify colors,

letters, and numbers when they are in front of him and can spell his name when writing it on

paper. One thing that child B always loved and knew very well was planes. The teacher had little

airplanes that he wanted to play with every time they went into stations. While Child B was

typically on target or a little behind in cognitive development Child A excelled. Child A writes

much better than most of the students. She also does a phenomenal job at cutting. Child A is on a

much higher reading level than the rest of her classmates. While observing child A I documented

that she is always observing her fellow classmates’ behavior and actions. Child A can recite her

name, her mother’s name, her best friends name, and her older sisters name. Child A is on target

with majority of the things they are learning in their curriculum. Her vocabulary was very

advanced and she uses words that many other students wouldn’t know the meaning of. We did

letter of the week every week and the teachers could always count on child A to list words that

started with the letter of the week. Child A had a very good sense of time and what day of the

week it was. Child A was very aware that books are read from left to right and top to bottom and

could read books aloud to her class. I observed her as she read and when she got stuck on a word

she would sound it out and look at the pictures on the page to help her figure out the words. She

almost always could figure the words out by using the pictures or context clues. While observing

child A I noticed that she likes to be at the centers with less people in them. She did a very good

job at placing herself in the center that she didn’t have to communicate with much people. After

only observing child A for a short period of time I realized how ahead she was cognitively.
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While observing the children it was the easiest to document where they both were

socially and emotionally. Child A was much quieter than child B and could not easily express

her emotions. Child B was the opposite of this. Child B would try his best to speak through his

speech impairment and he was never afraid to express what he was feeling. My first day

observing him he bites another child because he didn’t get the toy he wanted during station time.

The cooperating teacher aid approached him and asked him why he bite another child for. When

she asked he turned around and pointed to the other student and the toy he wanted while crying.

The teachers did not make him go sit at his table and they allowed him to continue to play in a

different station. I think the teachers should have shown him discipline by making him apologize

and go sit by himself at the table. After he began playing again the teacher talked about what

their plan of action should be and they decided to text the mother and let her know what

happened.

Child A has an older sister and lives with her mother, although she is the youngest she

does not get all of the attention. On the opposite side of that spectrum is child B who lives in a

house with only his mother, in which shows him all of her attention. It is not an assumption that

child A often gets looked over at home because I have observed it in the classroom as well.

When being dropped off or picked up from school her mom typically brings her sister and I have

observed that the mom is more attentive to her sister rather than her. Child A’s lack of social

skills could be deprived from not getting the attention at home and feeling that no one is going to

show her attention at school either. Child B is the only child so I knew from the beginning that

he would be harder to handle. He tended to cry when he didn’t get his way or if he didn’t get

what he wanted. One time he bit a child because the child skipped him in the lunch line. I believe

that a lot of child B’s actions come from him being the only child and having his way all the
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time. I do not think he would be the same way if he had older siblings. I believe having older

siblings or even younger siblings would teach him that he cannot always get his way when he

wants it. While behavior was rarely an issue I did observe the two children on very different

cognitive levels.

While both child A and child B were both the same race and both had a loving mother,

they had differences in other areas. At breakfast and lunch child A ate everything on her plate,

and ate her food without making a mess. She brushed her teeth when she was asked and used the

bathroom or at least tried when asked. Child A would also lay down for nap time with ease and

sleep the whole time. Therefore, she was fed, well rested, and clean. All of these things suggest

that child A will develop better which explains how advanced she was overall. Child B did

always appear to be clean however, he struggled opening his milk daily and would not eat

anything type of food that had a slimy texture. He would only brush his teeth when he felt like it

and he struggled laying down for nap time. One day for breakfast the lunch ladies served Jell-O

with fruit in it with grits for the main dish, and he wouldn’t eat any of it. Due to all of the food

having a slimy texture, he didn’t eat at all. Throughout my time observing I only observed child

B not eating one meal but what I found from that observation was the nutrition value of what he

was eating is fairly low. He was very attached to other people. If someone doesn’t lay him down

to sleep then he won’t fall asleep.

The environments that I observed these two children in were good for physical

development and about average for social emotional and cognitive development. There were

many objects inside of the classroom that they could use to help them develop fine motor skills.

Objects I saw that supported fine motor development were creative movement dances, pencils

and other writing utensils, connectors, and blocks. The playground was large and had plenty of
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space for running and throwing or catching a ball from a long distance which also promoted

gross motor development. The playground also had swing sets and play sets on them which

improved the children’s social skills. When the students asked a teacher to ask a student for the

swing, the teacher made them ask which helps them socially. Although the teachers did a good

job decorating the classroom and the layout, design and décor promoted development the

organization of the stations could have been better. I feel that the teacher did not take the safety

of the students into consideration when laying out her classroom. Where the teacher stands at

majority of the time for stations is all the way across the room from the blocks area. I feel that is

dangerous because a child could easily swallow a block. During my three weeks at the head start

program the children never had running water at the sink, the sand and water station never got

used, and the children never had longer than 30 minutes for lesson time. Something I am

thankful for is how loving the teachers seemed towards the students, many of the other teachers

in the building seemed aggravated with the students and my teachers never showed their

aggravation. They carried themselves in a professional manor and spoke to their staff and

students in a respectful way. The students never sense the tension between the teachers. The

teachers always supported each other in everything that did and every decision they made.

Although child B never seemed to be influenced by the environment, child A could have

possibly been impacted. Child A from what I observed doesn’t do very well in an unorganized

environment. During stations the teacher allowed the students to pick their station and stay their

however long they wanted to. I feel like this negatively impacted child A because she looks for

structure because it makes things less awkward for her. As a teacher I wouldn’t change much

about how the classroom was decorated or the supplies in the classroom but I would change how

the classroom was set up as well as how I rotate the stations. The last thing that I would change
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about the environment is the classroom management. I didn’t like their form of discipline in the

classroom because there wasn’t any. I feel that kids need some form of discipline weather it be

sending them to someone or making them sit in their seat. I really value having some form of

discipline in place for the children.

In summary I picked two children to observe that were very different. Child A lives in a

single parent household with only her mom and has an older sister and another sister on the way,

while child B lives in a single parent household with only his mom and is the only child. Child A

is physically average while child B is the smallest out of all the students. Child A is well above

all of her classmates for cognitive development while child B is on the lower side of average.

Child B is socially and emotionally above average while child A is very reserved and isn’t

always easy to understand. I chose to observe these two very different children so that I could get

the most out of the experience. I wanted to pick Child B because I knew he would be easy to

observe and I really wanted to dig in deeper to understand the underlying cause for his behavior.

I chose child A because I knew she struggled with her social skills and I wanted to see how far I

could get her before my time there was up. This experience really helped me to understand more

about children’s behavior and some of the decisions they make throughout their years.
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