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PEPSI Screening

Alyssa Moreno

EDU 220: 1001 Principle of Education Psychology

Dr. Rochelle Hooks

October 2022
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For my Pepsi screening I surveyed a 12 year old named Lauren. Lauren just moved to Las Vegas

with her family this year, her Mom, Dad, and younger brother are all here from New Jersey.

Understanding personal and social development is critical to your ability to motivate, teach, and

successfully interact with students at various ages (Berk, 2018; Boyd & Bee, 2018; Feldman,

2017 Squires et al., 2013), the PEPSI screening gives you the full understanding of a child this is

my understanding of Lauren.

Upon moving Lauren had to enroll in new extracurricular programs, she has joined a club

volleyball team which she participates in 3 times a week, twice for practice and once for games.

Lauren has also chosen to continue the two instruments she plays, the violin and the piano.

Lauren also attends a new school that is quite like her previous, she attends advanced honors

classes and even studies Spanish as a second language. Lauren has made many new friends in

her short time here in Las Vegas but still finds time and great joy in keeping in touch with her

family and friends from New Jersey.

Lauren exceeds expectations for majority of the Pepsi screening. Along with screening

Lauren, her younger brother was present at the time as well. Cyrus, is only 16months younger

than Lauren and I believe a lot of her growth and awareness has to do with being so close in age

to her sibling. Cyrus is on the Autism spectrum, he attends many programs and extracurricular

programs but many of these pertain directly to his needs. Lauren and Cyrus do not attend school

together nor do they attend any extracurricular programs together, but when together share many

of the same interests and liking towards entertainment programs such as tv and YouTube.
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For physical development, Lauren is meeting the transition of hormones changing from

fat to muscle giving her a sense of strength, although I do believe Lauren is going through these

changes she does not appear to be affected by the poor eating and body image that can take

charge in the early adolescent years. Lauren seemed to take a liking to foods that make her happy

and fueled over a crash diet that may cause a difference in her sports career. Lauren ate a full

dinner, and her mom never discussed any issues she has with her having many foods. We also

enjoyed an entire sheet of cookies throughout the night.

Emotional development, Lauren is at a maturing point in time where I feel around others

she wants to be seen as her own person with her own likes and ideas. Being that Lauren has a

younger sibling on the spectrum some of her goals and passions have been persuaded by the

dynamic of her family. When together Lauren does everything, she can to make her brother feel

welcome and comfortable and just like everyone else. Lauren practices boundaries around her

personal time while still being sure her brothers emotional needs are met. An example of this is,

Lauren was playing video games with some friends online and expressed to her brother how he

could be there to listen and enjoy too if he wasn’t being disruptive during the battle. This was a

great step that I took note of for Laurens emotional and social skills, she knew that taking a step

to communicate properly with him would completely change the outcome of emotional outbursts

when playing games with her friends. The communication was clear and received well by all

parties. I do think the connection of how the household communicates with each other has a

strong impact on how the children will communicate. As Hazelton noted, prior to the time of

reorganization the child has a time of chaos. I think this is subsidized by the presence of proper
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and positive communication skills; the household is not perfect, but it is clear they recognize the

bias that can be created from a chaotic household.

Philosophical development, “the child is still squarely involved in black-and-white

reasoning”

I mention this due to a conversation I overheard Lauren having with her peers. Lauren’s friend

had mentioned he was called a name in class and Lauren’s first response was “That’s not nice,

did the teacher hear? Did you tell the teacher?” Lauren realized what was being said was wrong

and wanted to fix it by letting the grownup that was around know. She also looked around to see

who was listening to this conversation before making this response, this led me to believe she

may be desiring to appear “good” in-front of grownups and might have possibly reacted

differently if I didn’t appear to be listening. Piaget’s theory of development represents

constructivism, a view of cognitive development as a process in which children actively build

systems of meaning and understandings of reality through their experiences and interactions

(Berk, 2018; Schunk, 2016) I believe this year will have a huge turn of growth for Lauren.

Social development, I noticed behavior from the eleventh year and early adolescence.

While hunting for a bit of approval in certain comments throughout the screening to towards the

end when I attempted to grant some authority and ask Lauren to go to bed, she proceeded to push

the boundaries and suggest she do things that her mom lets her do repeatedly. I was with Lauren

for 6 hours on the day of the screening, 1 of which her parents were present. During the first hour

Lauren was using her iPad to play video games with her friends out loud, at first when her

parents were around, she attempted to quiet down her friends when saying words like “stupid”

and bashing others. When her parents left, she was a bit loud and began to interact a bit more
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with the banter but nothing extreme. The difference in interactions seemed to align perfectly with

her age norm.

Intellectual Development, Lauren has been pushed in her intellectual development but to

a positive avail thus far. She does well in school but is also provided many tools to help maintain

this. Throughout the evening she also expressed her joy to be learning Spanish in school and

practiced for “fun”. There were a few things that reminded me of the early adolescence chapter,

but I do believe she is a bit closer to the 11th year in this category. Although she was starting to

fully understand concepts, I didn’t see much depth in conversation throughout our time.

Recommendations for each area would be, continuing to assist in a positive body image

and self-acceptance around the house, while keeping Lauren in the know about what her new

changes might be. Emotional, I do feel the family is on the right track. Especially when

discussing proper emotions and how these affect a family dynamic. I witnessed the two children

talk about why their emotions are important. Philosophically I believe allowing Lauren to

express her ideas and thoughts while being constructively advised would keep her in a healthy

direction. Keeping positive role models and adults present. Socially, I would recommend the

same as philosophically. Keeping positive role models that communicate effectively around is

very important in these developmental years. Not having too many adult issues or conversations

around her that may lead her to rebel. Intellectually, the next years when she can understand

concepts and how and why will hopefully be able to create a “go harder” mentality and push

herself to be as great as she can.

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CITATIONS

Ellsworth, J. E. (1999). 11th Year. jan.ucc.nau.edu. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from

https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Ejde7/ese504/class/pepsi/PEPSIObserv/year11.html

Berk, L. (2018). Development through the lifespan (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Bee, H., & Boyd, D. (Eds.). (2012). The developing child (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New

Jersey

Feldman, R. S. (2017). Understanding psychology (13th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Schunk, D. (2016). Learning theories: An educational perspective (7th ed.). Boston, MA:

Pearson
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Age Norm

P E P S I