Marias Child Development

There are a lot of complex pieces to a child’s development both cognitively and physically with many intertwining systems and mechanisms. “Child-development researchers usually examine different domains or areas of development, such as physical growth, cognition, language, and social relationships” (Barnfield & Kail, 2012, p.19). In this paper, the child was observed and assed based on five different domains which includes physical growth, cognitive domain, emotional domain, social and self-concept domain. The child that I have assessed is a 10-year old girl, she is currently in Grade 5, her parents are both pure Filipino but she is raised and born here in Canada. For ethical reasons I’ll call her Maria.
The first domain that was observed is …show more content…
In this domain, physical attributes and capabilities of the child were observed. One way to measure physical growth is in terms of height and weight (Barnfield & Kail, 2012, p.111). Marias’s height is 54.4 inches and her weight is 84 pounds. Based on Body Mass Index Table for aged 2-19 years acquired from Dietitians of Canada’s website (2014), Maria’s Body Mass Index (BMI) is 19.9 which suggest that Maria’s weight and height is normal for her age. Additionally, based on Height-Weight-for-age Chart for 2 to 19 years old girls, Maria’s percentile falls on above the 3rd percentile but below 85th percentile and this suggests that her weight is healthy for her age (Dietitians of Canada, 2014). Furthermore, from my observations of Maria’s physical features, I noticed that her breast is growing and this is confirmed by her mother. With regards to this, I conclude that Maria is on the puberty stage. The growth of breasts is one of the changes in secondary sex characteristics, which is defined as physical maturity not linked directly to reproductive organs (Barnfield & Kail, 2012,