RUNNING HEAD: CHILD STUDY 1
Child Study Paper
Nick Bonifazi
Northern Illinois University
CHILD STUDY 2
Introduction
Jack is a nine-year-old boy from the suburbs of Chicago. He is in 4th grade and is
one of the youngest in his class due to an August birthday. He is four feet and six inches
tall, weighing about 62 pounds. He is right handed and right footed. He is also a
Caucasian. Jack has lived in the same house for most of his life and has a mother and
father that live with him. He also has an older brother and younger sister.
Physical Development
Height and Weight
Jack is four feet and six inches tall and weights about 62 pounds. According to the
Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) growth chart, Jack is right around the 50th percentile
for both height and weight. In terms of height he is just barely above the 50th percentile
line and for weight he is right on the line. Jack’s BMI was calculated at 14.9%. According
to the CDC he is in the 20th percentile for BMI and is at a healthy weight for is height and
age.
Although Jack is in the 50th percentile for his height, he is a bit shorter than most
of his friends. He does have a few friends who are shorter than him, but most of his
friends are taller. One potential problem that Jack can face is being seen as less mature
than his friends. Since he is smaller, some of his peers and maybe even teachers will see
him as less mature (Meece & Daniels, 2008, pg.99). This can lead to Jack potentially
being held back in school and later achievement problems. Being held back is something
that very unlikely for Jack considering the differences between his and his friends sizes
are so small.
Motor Skills
CHILD STUDY 3
The first thing that Jack was asked to do was write his name a few different ways.
He was asked to write it normal and in cursive with both hands. First, he wrote his name
with right hand in print. He was able to complete this task with ease. He capitalized the
first letter and wrote the rest in lowercase. The letters were not shaken or broken in any
way and he wrote fairly heavy compared to his left hand. The only problem with his
name was that it very slightly angles down. This could be because he was asked to write
on a piece of printer paper and not lined paper. When he wrote with his left hand it was
much worse. His letters were very shaky and he wrote rather light. He also had a hard
time keeping his letters uniform. Once he was done writing in print, I asked Jack to write
in cursive. The results were very similar for cursive as they were for print. When he
wrote with his right hand, the only real problem was his writing was a little shaky. Other
than that, he was able to write his name correctly and with little trouble. Writing his name
in cursive with his left hand was the most difficult part for him. It was written very lightly
and the letters were very shaky. He was still able to write his name in cursive, but it is a
bit difficult to read. In terms of pencil grasp, Jack had is index finger and thumb on the
pencil and the pencil resting on the side of his middle finger tip.
The next task that was assigned to Jack was cutting. He was asked to cut a piece
of paper with a straight line across it and also cut out a circle. When Jack cut the straight
line he was, for the most part, able to cut straight down the paper. He did cut slightly off
the line, but the cut was fairly straight nevertheless. When he cut the circle, he did
struggle a little. He had a difficult time staying on the line of the circle and was
frequently moving the scissors back and forth. While he was cutting the circle he did say
that he hated cutting because he thought he was bad at it. One final fine motor skill Jack
CHILD STUDY 4
was asked to do was tie his shoe. He was able to tie his shoe with ease and used the
bunny loop method. This is where he took both sides of the string and made a loop out of
them, then tied them together. He was able to tie and untie his shoe on his first attempt
with no problem whatsoever.
Jack’s fine motor skill look to be appropriate for his age. He is able to write
successfully with his right hand, which is his dominant, and he is able to tie his shoe with
ease. The only tasks he really struggled on were writing with his left hand and cutting out
the circle. According to the textbook children tend to master writing around the age of
eight or nine. This means there are no letter reversals, the writing is uniform and even,
and there is proper use of upper and lowercase letters (Meece & Daniels, 2008, pg.92).
Jack also shows strong preference to his right hand. When writing his right hand was the
neatest and most legible, when cutting he only cut with his right hand, and when he was
tying his shoe, his right hand did most of the work. “Researchers now believe that brain
