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Back to Subjects - Philosophy

My child

My child Wednesday, July 19th, I had a chance to observe carefully an infant for about half an hour in my psychology class at Santa Monica College. The infant, Ali Osman, a healthy, playful boy appears to be of Middle Eastern origin. He is 15.5 months old, 32” tall and weighs about 24 lbs with brown curly hair, dark brown eyes and fairly tanned skin. There were several kinds of toys like blocks, dolls, and automobiles in the room. However, when he just came in, he was immediately drawn to the dolls with intense interest and focus. Even though there wasn’t any way to measure his heart rate or brain wave, I could easily tell how interested he was by the way he gazed, touched and played with the dolls. This could be explained by the fact that “the perception of an unfamiliar stimulus usually elicits physiological responses” (Berger 156). Later, my explanation of his behavior was confirmed to be correct by his mother. She says that he had never seen a doll before. Clearly, he was sensing the strange object and trying to perceive it. And exactly as the text said, “eventually, habituation occurs, in which the stimulus becomes so familiar and uninteresting that these responses slow down.” (Berger 156). He got tired of the dolls and began to pay attention to other toys and people around him. According to table 5.2, the Age Norms for Motor Skills in Berger, page 153, for his age of 15.5 months, 90% of all babies master the skill of walking. Beside being able to walk, just like the majority of infants at his age (from 1-2 years old), Ali is quite a toddler, “for the characteristic way they move their bodies, toddling from side to side.” (Berger 151). Although still toddling, Ali obviously belongs to the upper half of the population in mastering his gross motor skill since he is also able to walk backward, a skill that only 50% of infant could master at his age, again, according to table 5.2. Ali is quite a friendly kid, he is not afraid to be with strangers proven by the fact that he could interact very comfortably with me, my classmates, and other babies. However, when there were some unfamiliar things happening (like when the new baby twins came in or when someone made a scary face to him), he always looked for his mother and ran toward her as described in proximity-seeking behaviors (Berger 226). He is a representative of secure attachment by showing that he had no problem with being away from his mother and exploring on his own (Berger 228). Besides, he also reacted to the Strange Situation the way we expected from a secured child as stated in Berger on page 228 and on table 7.1, page 230. After play for a while, he came up to me with a book and showed me the content, then he gurgled something, clearly wanting me to read it to him. His intention was well understood. Without sufficient vocabulary, using only hollow phrases, he still has no communication problem. After all, communication is about understanding not vocabulary anyway (Berger 198). He showed clear signs of understanding his mother’s commands such as “up, down, kiss, bye, etc.” by following them. His spoken language has been developed normally according to table 6.2 in Berger, on page 194. One interesting thing was that when he was sitting in the chair and reading the book, he did not make any recognizable word sounds but “blah…blah…blah… “ However, the way I see it is that he was not babbling, but instead he was pretending to read but he could not find any word that matched with the content of the book so he ended up with that one-size-fits-all babble. At the age of 15.5 months, Ali is falling into Piaget’s stage five, the stage for experimentation and exploration (Berger 192-193). “Piaget referred to the stage-five toddler as the little scientist who “experiments in order to see.” (Berger 193). Ali is a very active, playful and curious boy. Just look at the way he studied the dolls at the beginning and how he played and discovered how to roll some round thing (I don’t know what it was) later, you will see. And fitting the blocks into their right holes also shows that Ali is in fact a little scientist with his “trial and error” experimentation. Ali is passed the age to be awe by peek-a-boo because he has achieved Object Permanence, “the realization that objects still exist even when they cannot be seen, touched or heard” (Berger 181), as early as 4.5 months old. As stated in Berger on page 182, to find a hidden object requires at least two abilities: “setting a goal and knowing how to achieve it”, and a child will not have those abilities until he is at least 8 months old. Ali is way passed that so he could find something that Dr. Berg was trying to hide under a towel easily. He still enjoys this hide-and-seek game, but it is much less fun at his age “unless the hiding is less obvious” (Berger 183). Ali has a wonderful personality, which is the emotions, behaviors, and attitudes that make an individual unique (Berger 216), or as least I think so for the following reasons. He is outgoing, assertive, active, easygoing, kind and helpful…. These characteristics put him into the 40% easy-temperament (Berger 221). With further observation, I can safely conclude that Ali belongs to the first two dimensions of temperaments in the “big-five”, which are Extroversion and Agreeableness (Berger 221). I cannot believe that I was able to see so much in a child the way the text shows in such a short period. I was particularly impressed with how incredibly secured Ali was, which shows through his friendliness, kindness and curiosity. In addition to his well-developed cognitive skills (in communicating, learning, playing…), his general physical conditions as well as his motor skills are also astounding. Personally, I would be very happy if I could raise such a healthy child in a future. Finally, for comment on the observation’s setup, I would say that it was good, no problem so far, as least for me. After all, you are the expert, you’ve done this for years, and I just don’t see how I can top that. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1062