Running head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFRENCES PROFILE 1

Individual Differences Profile Essay

Rodriguez Kia

Instructor: Dr. Egbert

Education 205: Developmental Differences 10:00

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Abstract

This essay shows the general information about Jax, young male that has ADHD, a

learning disorder. His physical development and cognitive development are all very well

and either average or a little above average. His social-emotional development needs a

little lower than average. This student has troubles focusing in class struggles

communicating with peers his age, and struggles with his self-image. According to the

summary and the findings in this essay, you will see the same.

Abstract As the essay shows the general information about this young male that has

ADHD, a learning disorder. He has great physical development, average cognitive

development, and does really well in socio-emotional development. This student has

troubles staying busy and sitting for a long period of time. According to the summary and

the findings in this essay, you will see the same.

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Individual Differences Profile Essay

For my paper I deicide to meet with Jax and his family about his disability that he was

diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 4. ADHD stands for Attention-deficit hyperactivity

disorder. ADHD according to our book How the Special Needs Brain Learns is “a

syndrome that interferes with an individual’s ability to focus (inattention), regulate

activity level (hyperactivity), and inhibit behavior (impulsivity)." Jax and his family are

Caucasian Americans.

General Information

The interviewed student is 9 years old; his birthday is in August. His

ethnicity is Caucasian, and his sex is male. This student has a mother, and an older sister

who is 10 years older than him. Jax is in the fourth grade. His mom is a cosmetologist,

and his sister is a college student. Jax’s Mom and sister encourage and inspire to play

sports. He has to walk to his sports practices. His practices are usually right across the

street from his house, at Kimberly Elementary School. Sports run a lot of his energy off

as well. Jax also loves video games and spends most of his time outside of school and

sports playing Fortnight and Minecraft while his Mom is at work.

This student attends Stricker Elementary from 8:00 am to 3:25 pm, Monday

through Friday. He is currently in the fourth grade. However, he gets two recesses while

he is in school, one recess is from 10:35 to 10:50 am and the other one is from 2:05 to

2:20 pm. He also has lunch from 12:20 to 1:05 pm. During his recesses he plays with a

few kids but generally talks to the teacher on duty. Recess and lunch runs a lot of his

energy off. The way he gets home from school every day is by the bus
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Physical Development

This student is five feet tall and weighs 112.10 pounds. His hair is a light brown

color, because his Mom is a cosmetologist, he said he lets her do whatever she wants with

his hair but they usually keep it short. He has brown eyes and has very white skin but

does have a slight tan from outdoor activities. This student’s physical maturation

compared to other students is quite a bit different as he is very tall for his age. He looks

the same as all his classmates besides him being in his words “freakishly tall and a little

chubby.” His general physical health is pretty good, but he does have knee pains from

growing very fast. Jax is also right-handed.

Jax is usually active and does a lot of extracurricular activities that are usually related to

sports. He does soccer, baseball, and football. He also goes and does a lot of outdoor

activities with his Mom, they go hiking, camping, fishing, and kayaking. Food wise

though he does not eat very well because a lot of the time he is alone while his mother is

working so he eats a lot of fast meals that can be heated up in the microwave or cold

cereal, on the days his mom is home they do eat a lot of healthy meals like fish, Brussel

sprouts, ribs, and other healthy meals.

Jax has no problems with any of his large muscle development and is a very

healthy and happy child. When he was born however, he was a premature baby and was

born weighing less than 4 pounds. Because of his premature birth so when it comes to his

small muscle development his upper lip muscles did not develop completely and because

of that he has a hard time puckering his lips and cannot form his lip properly to whistle.

Cognitive Development
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Jax is placed at fourth grade with all the other kids his age and his best subject

right now is his vocabulary. He really loves learning new words and finds the challenge

of memorizing the words to be very fun. On the flip side of that however he struggles the

most with his accelerated reading right now because he has a hard time staying still and

focusing on one thing because of his ADHD and unfortunately this is the case with many

of his subjects. This student cognitive development (Piaget’s) is at the stage of Concrete

Operational, the third of Piaget’s four major stages, characterized by children’s ability to

think logically, but only about concrete problems and objects. Jax often needs help

learning these concrete problems and objects at home because he often needs to learn by

doing engaging activities that he does not get at school.

His Zone of Proximal Development (ZDP) (Vygotsky) has been mostly high

scores in vocabulary and more recently Idaho History. Jax loves learning new things that

he can apply to his everyday life. When he is outside with his Mom, he likes to point out

different things that he learned in class, for example he will see a bunch of trees and tell

her what the state tree is. He does that with almost everything. He also likes to tell his

Mom about new words or new history facts he learned from school. He does however

struggle in most other subjects because of his difficulty focusing and thus spends a lot of

extra time at home studying and getting help from his sister so that he can keep up his

grades. Jax does say that he feels like he does better at home because there are less

distractions and he enjoys that he is getting one-on-one help.

Cognitively Jax was right where he needed to be when attending kindergarten

through third grade. He was in the preoperational phase and was able to be able to link

symbols to sounds and letters and was able to understand basic symbols and characters.
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Socio-emotional Development

Jax is a little more hyper when he talks to kids and has a hard time making new

friends because of it. Like most kids his age his behavior tends to change when he is

around other kids. He turns into almost an entirely different person when he is around his

friends. When he is in the classroom, he gets moved a lot because of his friend’s

neobehaviorism, theory which believes that changes in behavior are observable and

influenced by internal processes. When he interacts with his peers, he tends to be more

hyper and aggressive. But when he is around adults, he is much calmer and tends to have

more of a conversation with them. When he talks to his peers, he seems to talk more with

body movements and loud sounds. He is very social and often interjects in class with

comments he thinks of during lessons. I believe that he still is slightly in the

preoperational stage because he often throws tantrums when he does not get what he

wants and has slight anger issues, although they have been getting better as he started

taking ADHD medication and his Mom is helping him find ways to calm himself. Jax’s

Mom has had to be called multiple time to the school because of his tantrums in class or

fights he has with classmates. A lot of the time though when his peers are involved in a

matter it is because Jax is getting bullied or harassed and has asked to talk with a teacher

with is Mom. Jax’s peers also seem to be in the preoperational stage because they also

get angry when they do not get their way and a lot of the time their anger is taken out on

Jax. He is often bullied or harassed which has affected him a lot mentally and has caused

him to be more scared to speak in class or to other children his age.

Jax and his Mom have a very healthy relationship and that really reflects on how

he interacts with adults. Jax’s Mom is very supportive and treats him more like a friend,
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so his interactions with adults is a lot more open and comfortable. Which is why he

tends to hangout with the teachers on duty at recess.

Because Jax gets bullied his self-concept is very poor. When asked if he thinks he

is smart he replied, “I’m half smart half dumb.” Jax is often told that he is dumb, or he is

weird so he has started just calling himself that. Jax seems to take what the kids say to

him to heart. He also referred to himself as fat and because of it has started following

along with work out videos at home to try to get skinnier. To me it was obvious that Jax

lacks self-esteem and has very poor self-image.

I believe Jax to be in the Industry vs. Inferiority stage (Erikson) because he

gives himself a pat on the back for his tasks however, he feels as if he is lesser than his

peers. Jax is often comparing himself to others and saying that there is something wrong

with him no matter how well he is doing. But he does try hard for his Mom because she

encourages him and believes in him the most and because of this he tried to excel in

academics but seems to lack socially. He has a hard time talking to kids because he

doesn’t want them to dislike him and instead tries to avoid them all together.

Summary, Conclusions and Implication

I think Jax has a lot of potential to excel in academics but lacks the support he

needs from his educators and his peers. Jax has been made to believe that his dumb and

that something is wrong with him. Which is discouraging him from doing a lot of his

more difficult assignments because he has built up a “what’s the point” mindset. I think

he and his peers need to be a little more informed about ADHD and what it does and how

it affects people so they are more aware of why Jax and many other students act the way
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they do. I think having Jax know himself better will help him find better ways to manage

his ADHD. I believe Jax also need to have an Individual Education Plan (IEP), that

will be geared more towards engaging activities that will help him focus. I think the

school itself need to address Jax’s bulling problem because his mother has talk to the

principle multiple times about it and yet nothing has been done.

Cognitively Jax is where he needs to be and has worked hard at home to ensure he

is there and will continue to push to stay there. Jax also is more confident and

comfortable with adults because they treat him better than most of his peers. Jax lacks

socially because of it. He is comfortable expressing feelings to adults but struggles with

peers because he feels inferior.

Physically Jax is at the same level as his peers but is taller than 95% of kids his

age. Jax is also very energetic and loves to play sports but because of his anger issues

tends to get very frustrated when he does not understand something about the sport.

Socially Jax is great with conversations but is usually having them with adults

because kids his age tend to shut him down or ridicule him. Jax also seems to not be

aware to much of what ADHD is and how it affects him so he doesn’t think that it has

anything to do with the way he behaves or the way he can’t focus in class. Jax thinks it is

just him in general that makes him struggle which affects his self-esteem.

I believe Jax needs a lot of attention and help emotionally to ensure that he will

build on his self-concept as it tends to worsen when in teen years. I think to do this Jax

needs to meet more kids with ADHD and see that his behavior is completely normal and

that the way he is should not be something he should be ashamed of. I also think he need

to be encouraged to talk with kids his age more so he can learn to build his
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communication skills with kids his age. In school I think Jax’s teachers need to utilize

more Educational Technology that will engage him more when in school. Things like,

fidget cubes and fidget cubes. He also needs more interactive assignments and activities

like brain breaks to help him stay focused.

References

Sousa, D. A. (2007). How the special needs brain learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Berk, L. E., & Meyers, A. B. (2019). Infants, Children, and Adolecnece. Prentice Hall.