Running head: PEPSI SCREENING 1

PEPSI Screening of an Eight-Year-Old Girl in the 3rd Grade

Breanna L. Holden

College of Southern Nevada

PEPSI Screening of an Eight-Year-Old Girl in the 3rd Grade

The child observed is an eight-year-old female born September 18, 2012; she will be nine

in five months. Her parents identify her race as Chinese, Mexican, Irish, and Cuban. She is born

and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, and resides in the suburbs referred to as Mountains Edge. She

is in 3rd grade and enrolled in a public school in the Clark County Unified School District. For

privacy, the individuals name during the observation has been changed to Abby.

Abby is the oldest child and comes from a split household. Her parents divorced when

she was four years old. Both parents have since remarried, and both have had a new child in the

past year. Her mother has primary custody consisting of four to five days a week, and her father

has two to three days a week. If Abby could choose, she stated she would spend more time with

her mother; she doesn’t like her dad’s new wife. Her mom considers her household’s

socioeconomic class to be middle, and her dad considers his household to be lower-middle class.

Abby has no major medical issues. She did, however, have a severe allergic reaction to

scorpion venom six months ago. This reaction resulted in hospitalization and was moments away

from cardiac arrest. She has physically fully recovered from the incident but now is very afraid

to ever feel that sick again. Abby participates in club soccer and has played with the same team

for four years now. She recently picked up a love for gymnastics and wants to start taking classes

soon. Abby also has a passion for arts and crafts and loves being a big sister.

Physical Development

Abby has a slender build, stands 48 inches tall, and weighs 52 pounds. She is considered

to be in the 10th percentile for height and weight (Center for Disease Control and Prevention,

n.d.). Her smaller stature and weight are noted when she is playing soccer against girls her age.

She tends to be one of the smallest girls on the field, both in height and weight. According to
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Snowman and McCown (2014), primary grade children are highly active; this is evident in Abby.

She is full of energy and always needs to be doing something. Whether it is playing soccer,

jumping and flipping on the trampoline, doing gymnastics, or riding her bike, she is constantly

active and working on her agility and gross motor skills. She is very confident in her physical

abilities.

Abby is equally as talented in her fine motor development as well. She has good

penmanship, is a very gifted drawer, enjoys hand stitching clothes for her dolls, and can tie her

shoes. Somebody could even describe her drawing skills as better than many adults. Her patience

and attention to detail are impressive when it comes to custom making and stitching clothes for

her barbies and dolls. She works well with scissors and uses a needle and thread when making

the clothes. All these skills demonstrate developmentally appropriate fine motor skills for her

age.

Abby is aware of gender-specific characteristics and demonstrates them through play

with her dolls. She is aware of her body and her physical changes. It appears that Abby is starting

puberty at an average age. She just began wearing a sports bra during her athletic activities due

to slight body changes. She has mild body hair growth on her legs, breast buds, and increased

sweating under the armpits, which produces increased body odor after physical activity. Her

bodily changes would help explain her complaints of aches in her knees and wrists and assist in

concluding her pains are growing pains. When linked to puberty changes, growth spurts are

typical for her age. Puberty in girls occurs between eight and thirteen years old (Allen & Miller,

2019).
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Despite Abby being in the 10th percentile in height and weight, she is at a healthy and

normal physical development stage for her age. She is in excellent physical health, enjoys gross

motor activities, and displays excellent fine motor skills.

Emotional Development

Abby falls into the industry vs. inferiority stage of psychosocial development.

Unfortunately, in one of her household’s criticism is more common than praise. She is frequently

worried about disappointing her father and stepmom. Abby states she doesn’t let them know

what she really likes or wants because what she likes and wants will make them mad. Abby puts

aside her desires to make them happy. Her stepmom says things that an adult would consider

sarcasm. After talking to Abby about how it makes her feel, it is interpreted that she feels a sense

of disapproval and rejection after ridicule and sarcasm is expressed. Her dad and stepmom’s

behavior delays her development of industry and causes her to feel inferior. Children are

sensitive to criticism and ridicule and may have difficulty adjusting to failure (Snowman &

McCown, 2014). Mott Children’s Hospital lists being worried, empathetic, and understanding

other people’s feelings as age-appropriate traits of a nine-year-old (C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital

Michigan Medicine, n.d.). At age eight, Abby worrying about what people think indicates she is

advanced in her emotional development.

Unfortunately, with her advanced understanding of other people’s feelings, she could

experience more stress than her body and mind should be at her age. She seems to be going

through tolerable stress. Tolerable stress is a type of physiological response that could disrupt

brain architecture. Typically, supportive relationships can repair this; however, the divorce

stressor and not having parental support from one parent is causing stress and trauma (National
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Scientific Council on the Developing Child Harvard University). Her mom tries to reduce her

stress by providing her a safe and secure space to discuss her feelings and worries.

Abby seems to have a good understanding of good people and bad people. Her mom does

not shy away from explaining the challenging topics, and Abby shows acceptable emotional

responses to explanations of events. One event her mom recently explained was the Boulder, Co

shooter. Abby wanted to say a prayer for everyone hurt. She also asked for the man, who was in

pain that hurt all the people, to stop hurting too. She said if he were not in pain anymore, he

would stop hurting people.

Overall, her emotional development stage is normal to above average based on her

emotional understanding and increased empathy displays (Bohlin, et al., 2008).

Philosophical Development

Abby has a normal to advanced level of philosophical development. As stated above, she

has a good understanding of good people and bad people. She is always curious about why

people do what they do, why people would do something to hurt someone else, why people are

on the street without a home. She is very aware of why people need to wear masks right now.

She understands what it means to keep other people safe by wearing a mask. She has a good

heart and always wants others around her to be happy and safe. She demonstrates the early stages

of virtues. Greek moralists conclude that virtuous character traits have two aspects: a behavioral

aspect – doing a particular kind of action, and a psychological aspect - having the right aims,

concerns, and perspectives (Homiak, 2019). She has a virtuous outlook on life and holds herself

to those standards as well.

She has the capability to know when she is doing something right or wrong. She is not a

good liar and often tells on herself when she does something wrong. She displays a sense of guilt
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when accepting responsibility for her wrongdoings. Her transgressions are never hurtful towards

others or vengeful. They are typical household responsibilities that do not get completed on time

or correctly. According to Piaget, she is in the morality of constraint stage (Lourenço, 2016).

However, in his well-known theory of cognitive development, Piaget has suggested that

philosophical thinking doesn’t happen before age eleven (Pritchard, 2020). Piaget’s theory would

suggest that while her moral compass seems to be right on track for her age, she demonstrates

philosophical development at an earlier stage than he believed was possible.

Abby likes to be praised during her work. During online homeschool, she frequently

wants to tell an adult what’s she is doing or how well she is doing. When drawing, she shows the

drawing for continued approval. She likes to know what she is doing is right when she is doing

it. She highly dislikes being wrong. It is devastating to her if she doesn’t get something right.

Abby would rather receive praise than blame. She has a high level of accountability.

Social Development

Abby is a very outgoing and joyful child. She loves her friends and genuinely cares about

her friend’s likes, dislikes, and feelings. Her parents label her as the sensitive-tattle tale in the

group. She is a rule follower, and her play very much displays gender-specific behavior. Her

gender-specific behavior could be why she tattles more when she plays with boys and gets less

upset and frustrated by girls when she plays with them. By age six, typically, children tend to

gravitate towards members of their own sex; it is essential to let them make their friend group

choices (Rafferty, 2018). When Abby gets frustrated and tattles on her friends, her mother

encourages her to talk it out. Her mother never pulls her from the situation. Instead, she tells

Abby if she does not want to play with them, she doesn’t have to, but she needs to say that

instead of tattling. Typically, Abby goes back to her friends and sorts out the conflict.
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Abby’s mother constantly calls her metiche, which is the Spanish word for nosy. She is

very interested and wants to be in everyone’s conversations. She also loves having conversations

with her friends. She is allowed to have an allotted amount of time on her iPad and frequently

uses it to FaceTime her best friend and talk. Her added attention to her friends demonstrates her

age-appropriate social development (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.).

There is a seven-year and an eight-year gap between her and her two sisters. However,

that does not stop her from caring for and wanting to socialize with them in her free time. She

loves her baby sisters and is constantly playing with them. Siblings can play in ways that build

social and emotional competence. They do this by taking on each other’s perspectives, working

through problems together, forgiving, and showing love for each other (Smith-Miller, 2018).

Abby appears to be at a developmentally appropriate social level. There were no

observed characteristics that demonstrated she had not met the social milestones expected of an

eight-year-old girl.

Intellectual Development

Abby is in the concrete operational stage of cognitive development. She is beginning to

be less egocentric. Kids in the concrete stage are able to think about things the way others can

see them (Cherry, 2021). As mentioned in other sections of this observation, she is very curious

about the world around her and why people do what they do. She tries her hardest to understand

others and see things from their point of view. She may not be able to make the connections

entirely on her own; however, with explanations, she understands. Abby demonstrates this

understanding and less egocentric self by asking questions and making connections to other

situations. Although she doesn’t make abstract connections on her own, she seems to show the
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capability of understanding small-scale abstract ideas with the help of an adult. She can put

herself in other people’s shoes and understand why someone might feel a certain way.

Throughout the concrete operational phase, a child will demonstrate genuine enthusiasm

for learning new concepts and understanding the world and people around them; by age eight,

they will adequately articulate feelings in a range of ideas around them (Sick Kids staff, 2011).

Abby is a good student and demonstrates a genuine enthusiasm for learning new things. She is a

huge history fan and loves coming home from school with all the latest information she has

learned about the world and the women and men in it. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) passed

away, her mother explained who she was and what she has done for women’s rights. Abby was

so interested in her story and continues to be months after her passing. Recently at school, for

dress like your hero day, she wanted to dress like RBG. Her love for RBG and appreciating what

she has done for women further demonstrates her egocentric thinking transition to having a more

mature outlook and thought process. Her mother is doing an excellent job promoting her

intellectual growth by talking about current events with her.

Abby is a smart girl and receives high marks and praises from her teacher. She is very

focused on doing things right and see’s receiving an A as the most valid form of success in her

class, and she gets disappointed with anything else. That said, she is a creative thinker; she sees

things differently, which makes school challenging and frustrating for her at times. While

organization and procedures help her stay on track, she is a creative thinker and doesn’t always

learn information in the way it’s given in class. A study showed that some people could develop

many ideas that aren’t very creative; some can come up with average ideas in number and

creativity, while others come up with not many ideas that are very creative (Pringle, 2020). Abby

is the girl that comes up with not many ideas, but they are creative. It will be necessary for her
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teachers to see this learning characteristic in her. Understanding how she learns will only help

her grow and help her see that the quality of answers and the number of answers may be two

different things, but both equally as important.

PEPSI Chart
Development levels of Abby

Normal
Age Level

Physical Emotional Philosophical Social Intellectual

Recommendations for Parents and Teachers

Abby is in the 10th percentile for her stature and weight and right where she needs to be

with her gross and fine motor skills. Parents and teachers should continue encouraging her

physical activity and embrace her fine motor abilities. Her more diminutive stature is not

negatively affecting her physical development, and no changes are needed to be made.

Abby is more emotionally developed than the average eight-year-old. Parents and

teachers should keep in mind that she is prone to more stress due to her parents’ divorce and

different emotional environments in each parent’s home. Watch for stress and anxiety indicators
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and find ways to reinforce industry and reduce inferiority in her day-to-day life. Her father and

stepmom should reevaluate their interactions with her and find ways to remove her feelings of

failure around them. She is very emotional and carries many feelings; some feelings are intense

for a girl her age. Caregivers need to promote open conversations to assess how she is feeling

and monitor her emotional well-being. While she is a tattletale on the playground with friends,

she doesn’t like to tattle on her parents. She doesn’t like to tattle on her dad and stepmom to her

mom because she doesn’t want anyone to be angry at her. She keeps things to herself if her

feelings are hurt and eventually breaks down. It is evident one home harbors more of an

emotionally safe environment while the other is more emotionally damaging.

Abby is advanced in her philosophical development. One thing to keep in mind is she is

still young. While she seems to have a good understanding of events going on around her, some

things could be hard for her to comprehend fully. Abby is very hard on herself and believes in

following the rules and doing things right. Parents and teachers should continue to encourage this

while also letting her know that there isn’t just good and bad, right and wrong. It’s okay to feel

and think whatever she wants, and there isn’t always an answer for everything. She is very

caught up in being good, and right it appears she forgets these things.

Socially Abby is right where she needs to be. She is a good big sister, a good friend, and

is social with adults. She is interested in being around others and playing. She is sensitive; that is

something that needs to be watched. She gets upset over small things; it is essential to remember

that before reprimanding her playmates. She is very particular, and when things are not

completed or done her typical way, it upsets her. Parents and teachers need to ask her questions

and get the full story before making rash decisions. That also includes not brushing her off

because she usually is over-sensitive. Her feelings need to be monitored in these social settings.
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She responds well to asking what she wants to do about things. Ask her what she wants to

happen, and she will typically give a clear indicator of how serious the conflict with her peers

was. At one point during the observation, all she wanted was an apology; at another, she didn’t

want to play because he was too rough. Both times her reaction was equally as dramatic, but only

one of the times was something a parent or teacher should have intervened.

Intellectually the critical thing to note about Abby is she has a creative mind. With her

intense desire to be correct and receive A’s, it will be crucial for her parents and educators to

empower her learning and thinking style. She needs to be aware and accept there is more than

one way to do things, and it doesn’t make her wrong. She spins out while trying to do certain

things a particular way. When she can take a step back and have information shown in a different

light, she can better comprehend and process it. She is a good student, and praise is one of the

best ways to reach her. When she feels she is doing well, she has confidence in her that is

unshakable. However, as soon as she is critiqued, she starts to break down. Find ways to

incorporate her strengths with her weaknesses during a critique, so she doesn’t feel so depleted.

She reacts and learns best when the instruction is inclusive and interactive.

Overall, this child has reached all of her milestones and shows no significant

development delays. While there are things noted to watch for, no extreme steps are encouraged

at this time.
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