Instructions: Early and Middle Childhood Case Intervention Analysis
Create and analyze a simulatedcase study of a child with developmental challenges, aged 2-5 years old. Then create an intervention plan based on evidence-based strategies that have proven effective in similar cases, and make projections of possible long-term impacts that current challenges may produce across the individual’s lifespan.
INTRODUCTION
Note: The assessments in this course follow the successive stages of lifespan development, so you are strongly encouraged to complete them in sequence.Early childhood begins at the end of toddlerhood, at approximately age two, and continues until middle childhood begins with formal school entry at age five or six. During this period, there are greater changes in cognitive development than any other period of life. At the same time, family relationships provide individuals with their earliest social experiences. Attachment patterns developed during early childhood influence an individual’s ability to successfully develop and maintain peer and adult relationships throughout the lifespan.Two major theories describe cognitive development in early childhood—Piaget’s constructivist theory and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.Jean Piaget was one of the first theorists interested in cognitive development. Piaget proposed that cognitive development follows a predetermined sequence of four stages. Interestingly, Piaget conducted a substantial amount of his research observing his own three children. In their studies, Piaget and his wife transcribed detailed records of their children’s behavior (Lefmann & Combs-Orme, 2013).Lev Vygotsky (1962) emphasized the role of culture or society in the transmission of knowledge and offers a sociocultural perspective of lifespan development, integrating social environment and culture. He is well known for the introduction of the concepts of scaffolding, the zone of proximal development, and the private speech transformation to inner speech.Attachment is an important aspect of human emotional development during early childhood and throughout the lifespan. The family provides individuals with their earliest social experiences. According to Erik Erikson (1950), the key developmental issue in infancy is developing trust. The development of trust is directly related to the quality of attachment patterns. Much of the attachment theory is based on the strange situation, which is a measurement technique developed by Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues (Bretherton, 2013). There are four types of attachment patterns:
References
Bretherton, I. (2013). Revisiting Mary Ainsworth’s conceptualization and assessments of maternal sensitivity-insensitivity. Attachment & Human Development, 15(5/6), 460–484.Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). Norton.Lefmann, T., & Combs-Orme, T. (2013). Early brain development for social work practice: Integrating neuroscience with Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 23(5), 640–647.Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Though and language. MIT Press.
PART 1: CREATE THE CASE: EARLY CHILDHOOD
Create a simulated case study, relevant to your area of specialization, of a preschool child, 2–5 years of age, who presents developmental challenges related to factors described by Piaget’s or Vygotsky’s developmental milestones and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory.Your case study should be 1–2 pages in length and it should describe:
PART 2: CASE INTERVENTION ANALYSIS: EARLY CHILDHOOD
ResearchComplete the following:
Research evidence-based interventions that have been effective in meeting the challenges of the child you described in your case study, from the perspective of your own professional specialization (as far as possible).Explain how the deficits in the cognitive and other developmental domains affect development in early childhood.Explain how the environmental contexts impact development and functioning.State the recommended interventions that align with your specialization.Include evidence for those outcomes from the professional literature.Explore briefly the literature on cognitive development over time, considering that early influences can impact development across the lifespan.Explain, from the perspective of your specialization, how the early cognitive challenges could be manifested across the lifespan.Explain how (or whether) this might help in understanding and determining an approach to working with an individual who had early cognitive challenges.
STRUCTURE OF THE REPORTUse tHE APA PAPER TEMPLATE [DOCX] AND THE FOLlowing format to structure your report:
Title page.A descriptive title of 5–15 words that concisely communicates the purpose of your report and includes the name of the fictional subject. Be sure to follow Capella’s suggested format for title pages on course papers.Introduction.An overview of the paper contents, including a brief summary (approximately half a page) of the background information regarding the case study. (The complete 1–2 page case you developed will be included as an appendix.)Body of the report.The presenting challenges and primary issues.An analysis of how lifespan development theory and research may account for the presenting cognitive challenges. Highlight why the child is developing as described.A description of your selected child with attention to age-expected outcomes in cognitive development, as well as specific challenges the child has in not meeting those milestones.A description of the factors in the child’s environment linked to Bronfenbrenner’s theory that have an impact on their overall development.An assessment of the potential impact of individual and cultural differences on development for the current age and context described in the case study.Evidence-based interventions that have been effective in meeting the described challenges of your selected child, from the perspective of your own professional specialization.An explanation of how the deficits in the cognitive domain or environmental contexts impact functioning in other domains, such as social or emotional development (considering that in developing your case, the theoretical emphasis was on the cognitive domain).Recommended interventions that align with your specialization. Include evidence for those outcomes from the professional literature.Projections, based on research and/or theory, of possible long-term impacts that the current challenges may produce across the individual’s lifespan.Conclusion.A summary of what was introduced in the body of the paper with respect to the case study context, challenges, and interventions.Reference page.A minimum of five scholarly sources from current peer-reviewed journals, formatted in APA style.Appendix.The simulated case study you created in Part 1.
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