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Child Observation

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For our child observation project, we interacted with a seven year old boy named Nolan. Habituation: Nolan demonstrated habituation by showing an initial strong interest in us, but as time went on, he showed a decrease in interest. When we first arrived, Nolan frequently interacted with us by talking, sitting with us, showing his toys off and seeking our attention, such as dropping candy into a glass of water, trying to grab snacks, dropping food on the ground and trying to be funny. Later on in the observation, he left the room and began playing a video game and watching TV. He no longer cared that we were at his house. Maturation: Nolan showed many changes in his behavior during our observation. He was very attentive when we first began. Around thirty minutes after we started, we lost Nolans attention because he thought the game we were playing was boring and he did not cooperate as well as he had been before. Nolan also started to get tired and asked if he could sit on the couch and play his video game again. This was a quick change in behavior. Self-Concept: We demonstrated this by taking a photo with Nolan and then asked him to point out where he was in the photo. Nolan was easily able to identify everyone in the photo. The next question we asked to determine his self concept was “who are you”. He responded with a simple response, “I am Nolan Joseph Hoffman”. Nolan also said he was a seven year old boy and he was in second grade at Willow Hill. This shows that Nolan understands who he is physically, but does not yet have a full cognitive understanding of what he feels and believes in. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: To test Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, we took Nolan down to the basement where his sister has a small balance beam. When asked to walk along the balance beam completely unassisted, Nolan wobbled and stepped off a couple times. Following this, we held Nolan’s hands and helped him to keep his balance walking along the balance beam. Through this test, we were able to demonstrate an activity in which Nolan is in the zone of proximal development. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development: Nolan’s family has a small dog named Brady, and as a toddler, Nolan referred to

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