INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES PROFILE 1

Individual Differences Student Profile

Samantha D. Verity

EDUC 205: Development/Individual Differences

Spring 2021
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Envision living in a time of endless distractions where everywhere you look at the age of

eleven years old there are distractions to your development, especially with difficulty in

linguistic information, relationships with peers and family stressors. This is an insight to a

student named Patrick, an elementary student trying to find his way in a school setting, starting

to understand his differences in his social culture. In this student profile, I will provide the

following general information over the physical, cognitive, and the socio-emotional development

of a student who has an intellectual disability. I will also provide a summary of my major

findings.

General Information

Patrick is an eleven year and seven-month-old, fourth grade, Caucasian student. Patrick's

family lives in Buhl, Idaho where he attended school at Buhl Elementary, up until two years ago

when his family transferred him and his older sister into the Castleford School District. He lives

with his mother and his seventeen-year-old sister. His parents are divorced, he very rarely sees

his father; in his place is his father’s mother, his grandmother who is very involved in his

everyday life. They live in a four-bedroom house in Buhl where they commute to Castleford

every day by 8:00 am. His older sister drives them both to school every day. Patrick spends his

days split between his general education classes and his special education classes. During the

start of his day from 8:00-9:00 am he is in special education mathematics, 9:00-10:15 am Patrick

goes back to his general education language arts. From 10:15-10:30 am he has recess after recess

he goes to his general education mathematics. Lunch starts at 11:45 am - 12:45 pm during this

time Patrick eats lunch and goes back out to recess. Straight after recess he has special education

reading comprehension 12:45-1:15 pm, from there specials which consists of music, P.E., and

STEM which are every other day. At the end of his school day from 2:45-3:00 pm is recess,
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followed by 3:00-3:45 pm general education reading. When school gets out at 3:49 he goes home

with his grandma who works at the school teaching the STEM class. She spends time right after

school reading with him and working on his math skills which include life skills. Once Patrick is

finished his grandmother either drops him off at home with his mother, or they attend his older

sister’s softball games where she plays at Buhl High School. When he is finished with his family

function time, he spends more time working on his school work with either his mother or his

older sister. Patrick spends a lot of time outside of the classroom on his education, for example

he goes to occupational therapy (OT) after school twice a week. He never lets his intellectual

disability get in his way of learning and trying his best.

Physical Development

Patrick is below average for his age in physical development. He is 4’3, 75 lbs., blonde

hair, blue eyes and fair skin. He is right-handed, small muscle development, small stature and a

somewhat larger face. His smile lights up a room and he has a big personality. Patrick wears

glasses, though he tends to forget to bring them to school a lot because he doesn’t prefer to wear

them. Though his vision lacks without his wear of glasses he is a very visual learner and his

hearing is phenomenal. Patrick tends to spend more time at recess with children in the

preoperational stage, he finds it more comfortable than that of his peers' interactions.

Patrick’s gross-motor skills, flexibility, balance, agility, and force are average for his

age. His fine-motor skills are below average for his age, he struggles with writing legibly and in

an appropriate size. Patrick’s drawings are that of the preoperational stage. He struggles with

organized play, structure, rule-oriented games, and peer interaction in play. Patrick suffers

from Pseudo-syncope which is a disorder that causes him to pass out when he gets too hot or

anxious. He tends to be sick more than average compared to that of his peers. Patrick eats a
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school-based breakfast and lunch every day at school. He is very active, stimulated easily and

easily distracted.

Cognitive Development

Patrick is a fourth grader at Castleford School District. He spends half of his day in his

general education classroom and the other half in his special education class. Patrick is pulled for

special education math by his case manager and special education reading by a paraeducator due

to his intellectual disability. His processing speed and working memory is in the very low range

for his age. In Piaget’s stage of development, he would be categorized in the preoperational

stage. Some strategies used are chunk information, present information in multiple formats, and

visual representations. Patrick’s Full-Scale IQ is 58 which falls into the very low range. He has

difficulty with memory strategies such as rehearsal and organization. He has needs in

language, receptive and expressive, which causes him to have difficulty in retaining information

in a strategic format. Since he has difficulty in the rehearsal stage, he has been unsuccessful in

his ability to group relatable items together. Through being pulled for special educational

services, there has been small improvement and with the strategies listed above it should

continue to grow into larger improvements. General education is the least restrictive environment

and is the end goal for Patrick and he is working very hard and is insistent upon reaching that

goal.

Socio-Emotional Development

Patrick enjoys spending most of his time with younger friend groups, he is more drawn to

peers of his same developmental stage. For example, he spends most of his time when not in the

classroom with students that he is surrounded by in his special education classroom. Out at

recess Patrick is the generator of play and prone to lead the group in make believe activities.
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When in his general education class, he tends to sit alone and has very little engagement with

peers his own age. At home Patrick doesn't spend a lot of time with friends outside of school, he

spends most of his time with his mother, grandmother and older sister. The student struggles

understanding relationships with peers his own age and does not have a lot of time outside of

school to spend with friends.

Patrick seems to fit into Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stage of development initiative

versus guilt (Berk & Meyers, 2016). He likes to initiate independent thinking and choices,

though he needs guidance from adult influences to self-regulate his choices, behavior and

emotions. Patrick overall is self-conscious for intentional wrongdoing, like cheating, lying or

taking something but still has difficulty regulating these behaviors independently. In a classroom

setting he would like to engage more with his classroom peers but doesn’t know how to initiate

conversation appropriately at age level. This causes stress and strain on his ability to adapt and

conform to a strong relationship in the classroom with his peers. Patrick seems to be socialized

away from his developmental stage by family influence; direct influence from his mother and

grandmother, while his father’s influence is indirect. With more socialization with peers his own

age he may gain a better insight to behavior and stages geared more towards his own age.

Summary of Major Findings

My summary of major findings is that Patrick is below average for his age in size, muscle

development. His gross-motor skills are average for his age, while his fine-motor skills are below

average for his age. Patrick’s intellectual disability seems to hold back his developmental stages

of development, though he has a high interest in becoming more socially, emotionally, and

physically active with peers his own age. School can seem to be challenging for him overall

being behind his peers with interactions, reading and math because of his intellectual disability.
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When looking over my observation notes, reflection and my findings of Patrick, based on the

observations he is in the preoperational stage of development by Jean Piaget (Berk & Meyers,

2016). I believe that through the use of intersubjectivity, scaffolding and participation Patrick

could grow and feel more confident in the classroom with his peers. As Vygotsky and Piaget

have both presented the importance of a classroom setting where participation frames the ability

to accept individual differences along with his peers. The teacher can aid this by using Patrick’s

zone of proximal development, to help guide him in his ability to learn more independently.

Patrick demonstrates his want to become more independent but struggles with knowing how to

reach that area on his own. He wants the ability to adapt to his social setting independently. I

think that by meeting him at the stage of development he is in and guiding him more in a more

direct manner to meet the concrete operational stage that he desires he will ultimately become

more confident and successful. Patrick is struggling with Erickson’s psychosocial development

stage, industry versus inferiority. From my observations of the student, he struggles with this

stage because he can see that he is different from his peers and struggles keeping up with the

classroom environment, socialization, school work, cooperation and negative relationship with

his father. He is starting to recognize more that he is different in comparison to his peers and

realizes the loss of relationship that not having his father around is showing. I believe he is

confused; he is trying to understand and is becoming more aware of his needs.

In Patrick’s general education class, he has difficulty with receptive and expressive

language which causes him to withdraw from the environment. To help with these barriers I

think at private OT and school-based OT will help bridge that gap more effectively. Speech in

the school setting and at home would also help Patrick excel. Patrick sits in the back of the class;

his classroom is very loud and chaotic which causes him to lose interest rapidly. When this
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happens, his teacher seems to be overwhelmed with the environment herself and I noticed at this

point she tends to leave Patrick unattended in the setting. I noticed at this point that his teaching

seems to be reinforcing his divide without noticing it is happening, which causes him to retract

from the subject entirely. I believe that by modifying the learning environment (Sousa, 2016)

for Patrick and implementing more general education support this could help him be more

successful in his general education class. For example, supplying modification to meet Patrick’s

learning profile, being close while giving instruction, placing him in a location with less stimuli

and distractions, and using a checklist system for expectations would benefit Patrick.

Patrick is starting to realize where is compared to his peers and he is starting to have a

difficult time accepting and learning how to understand this. During all of this he has frustrations

dealing with his intellectual disabilities when it comes to reading, writing, math, education, and

peer involvement. I could not imagine how difficult this must be on an eleven-year-old who is

trying to adapt to his new environment. With the right tools Patrick has every ability to be

successful in and outside of the classroom. Overall, I think Patrick is doing the best that he can

with the ability he has right now and I know he will excel in his future education.
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References

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

Sousa, D. A. (2016). How the special needs brain learns (Third Edition). Sage.