PHYSICAL, COGNITIVE, AND SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF A

NINE YEARS OLD PUPIL

A Case Study

Submitted to

Mr. Waren S. Abayabay

Faculty, Teacher Education Program
Initao College

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements in Educ 1:
The Child and Adolescent Learning and the Learning Principles

AXIELVIE BABATE
December 2021
 I. Introduction

Every child has different characteristics and development. As I observed a nine years old
pupil named Krisha Mae Arivalo. She lives in Pasong Tamo, Quezon City with her extended
parents. She is the second child and she has a half-brother and half-sister. Actually, Krisha
Mae was an adopted child of a family Etor. The family treats her so well like she is part of
the family and they never think that Krisha Mae is an adopted child. Their home was so small
and it’s a rented house. Yet, she`s never met her real parents since she was young. Base on
my observation during my interview happened last December 09, 2021, from 8:00 am to
10:30 am, and I was very interested in the reason behind her impressive characteristics. She is
a Grade 4 student in a Smart Angel school and is engaging herself through a different mode
of learning.
As I went through with my observation, this child was so cheerful, talkative, and most of
the time a moody person. She also updated with TikTok music and also a fan of Black pink a
Korean group, editing videos. She loves different outdoor activities such as biking, running,
and playing with her younger sister and with her friends. She likes watching TV and
YouTube videos and playing mobile legends and she loves to join in a beauty contest in her
school. And she spends most of her time using her android phone and with her younger sister.
Lastly, Krisha cherishes helping her mother with their little business like kwek-kwek and
other street foods and she also helps wth household chores.
.
 II. Observations of Development

Physical Development

Krisha Mae continues to grow and learn different physical activities, her motor skills
will also continue to become excellent. These test her reactions to her surroundings or even to
certain motivations. She uses her main bodily movements in performing gross motor skills--
jumping, running, dancing, balancing, etc. On the other hand, she uses her small bodily
movements in every timeline motor skills such as writing, and tying shoelaces. Children must
have adequate opportunities and be interested in developing these skills to become more
competent. According to Gesell (Arnold) his theory is concerned with the physical
development. Gesell observed hundreds of children’s and come up with the physical
development age-norms. He determined the normal sequence of development and at what age
children should be able to do. Certain things, like sit up, roll over, crawl, walk, etc. These
age-norms are still used today by the medical profession. The psychology professions, and
child-related fields these age-norms give us a standard by which to monitor a child’s
development. Lastly, as I recognize her she is physically healthy, her bones continue growing
and strong.
.
Cognitive Development

I observe Krisha Mae virtually together with her poster mother to guide her on my
topics because as I observe she is good at interacting with people. Also in different areas such
as language, mathematics, logic, and reasoning, for me to know her abilities I think of
something to test her like activities. I ask her to get some workbooks to do, and I give her a
simple activity. This is also known as a schema or cognitive frameworks or concepts that help
her to organize and interpret information. During her performance, she read it fluently and
tried to impress me by explaining the meaning of what she read. She almost got the highest
score on the assessment that I gave her. Aside from Tagalog language, she knows how to
speak Cebuano and she knows some Basic English.  Krisha Mae was also engaged already
with the different technologies such as android phones.  Because of the technologies, there is
no doubt that Krisha Mae was so active in terms of watching YouTube and improving her
talents through the TikTok platform. Krisha Mae is currently a Grade 4 student in a semi-
private school. Her mode of learning is through modular learning. After observing Krisha
Mae during this activity, we decided to assist her together with her mother to help her get into
the follow of the lesson. At first, egocentrism was quite obvious in the child for she was
grumpy and insisted on doing things her own way. After that I noted her mistakes, she was
asked to do the activity again and that’s when she decided to take our help. We guided her
through her work using the scaffolding method.
When we are referring to Piaget’s theory, Krisha showed the preoperational stage
perfectly. Doing things her way at first showed that she could not completely manipulate
information and was unable to take in the point of view of others. On the other hand, her
egocentrism did show the cognitive skill of reasoning, which was proof of her cognitive
development. She also showed a problem–solving the problem–solving when she then
decided to take in others' help, knowing her situation.
In addition, Krisha Mae's Vygotsky's reflected Vygotsky's ZPD theory. For Vygotsky,
the ‘zone of proximal development (ZPD) describes the gap between what the child can
achieve alone and what they can accomplish with the help of a more able adult or child. This
theory supported his belief that the ability to learn through instruction is essential for
cognitive growth and is located at the core of human intelligence. Vygotsky believed that
everyone has both an actual level of development and a developmental development’.

Socio-Emotional Development

Krisha Mae lives in a comfortable house where she can play a lot of games and
participate in a lot of activities. Krisha Mae is a very sociable child and joyful and
approachable to her friends and family who are always playing with her. And then she loves
to play with her younger sister and older brother. Also with her friends sometimes if her sister
sleeps she goes outside and plays with them. She said that playing with them will always
make her happy. In short, Krisha Mae is playful and a happy person. Even though she is
adopted child and never had a chance to meet her parents because they are already separated.
Her poster parents love her very much, they motivate her as they can. Children who learn
positive emotional skills from their parents seem to have more success making friends.
Children of emotionally expressive mothers tend to receive high regard from their peers
(Cassidy, Parke, Butkovsky, & Braungart, 1992).  Krisha Mae was so happy even she not
with her parents she is surrounded by positive people and her poster parents is very kind to
her and takes care like she is real daughter.  She is a family-oriented kid and always shows
kindness to her classmates and friends. She often shows concern to others, especially to her
family.

III. Conclusion

Through my observation, Krisha mae has developed properly in terms of physical

development and social development. Her body can withstand her physical activities like
playing, jumping, and running around. She also has a good interpersonal relationship with her
friends and family, etc. even she is from broken family  Krisha had successfully made it
through Erik Erikson’s industry vs. inferiority. The acknowledgment and encouragement she
got because of her strong personalities like attending beauty contests and quiz bees helped her
through this category. She felt a sense of accomplishment upon knowing that she had
something to prove to people. Krisha mae was able to cultivate competence as she
successfully passed Krisha mae age.
 However, despite the positive approaches to these two aspects, she still needs to be
further developed cognitively and emotionally. Just like she`s from separated family this also
can affect to her emotional development. It is normal but still needs development. 
Sometimes, Krisha Mae has been showing signs that she is selfish and feels jealous. As for
Krisha's emotional development, she is still affected by her insecurities of wanting to get her
parent's, attention which is the reason why she still gets emotional upon talking about it.
Another thing is when she knows the truth that she is an adopted child. Children who are
victims of broken families are often affected seriously only during the first year but once the
child starts to understand the situation, he eventually starts to adapt to it, and soon the topic
will not be something to avoid any longer.  Despite her situation, it is wonderful to see that
being in the extended family plays a great factor to ensure that Krisha made will still become
a jolly kid outside and that she is trying not to let the other side's personalities affect her
social life. In terms of cognitive development, I saw how Krishna shows excellent
performance.  However, we can deny the fact that the same with the other children, she still
needs to be further developed more cognitively and emotionally. In Krishna man's case, she
is having a hard time with school in some areas. It is normal but still needs development. As
we all know, it takes time for children to adapt to school activities by themselves. Children
around her age usually have tutors who assist and guide them in doing the schoolwork.
 IV. Recommendation

Future case studies for it on its own are still developing at school. And for those students
who will visit this study, it would be greatly admired for it will give them more knowledge
and some of the information on the children they will be observing too. I just want to give
some of my advice that these kinds of activities should give more time to gather more
information and of course understanding of your subject, which may produce better and more
interesting case studies. Such as schedule meetings, schedules for the subject (child) or parent
would also be a great tool in producing better case studies.
 V. Documentation

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Post-Interview