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Running Head: PEPSI SCREENING

PEPSI SCREENING
Jieun Seo
College of Southern Nevada

Biography
The child who I observed for the PEPSI SCREENING is Joon-Gi Kim. I have known him
for two years in the church where I am attending. The observation conducted for 4 weeks, once a
week in the church. Joon Gi is eight years old (3rd grade). He grew up under Korean parents who
immigrated to the U.S.A. He was born and raised in San Diego, California until four years old.
Then, he moved to Las Vegas because of his parents business.
He is an only child. Both of his parents work until late night even during the weekends,
so he does not have enough time to spend with his parents. After school, he stays in his friends
apartment and his mom picks him up around 9-10 pm. Then, his dad comes home at midnight.
Every summer when vacation starts, he is sent to San Diego where his grandparents are living
because his parents cant take care of him during the daytime. When he was young (before
entering elementary school), his mom used to bring him to her work and let him stay next to her.
He plays a lot with his smart phone that he just got from his parents. He is a little behind
his average school grade. He likes hanging out with his friends. He especially likes soccer and
some sort of physical activities. His parents were in their 40s when he was born so tend to let
Joon Gi do whatever he wants. However, his parents also have very conservative views so they
raise him very strictly in some areas. Joon Gi speaks both Korean and English fluently. He only
speaks Korean at home with his parents. He couldnt speak English fluently until he entered
elementary school.

Physical
I found that he especially likes playing ball. After lunch, he always gathers his boyfriends
and leads a soccer game in the parking lot. While he was playing a soccer game, he fell down on
the asphalt ground and got wounded his knees.
Child Development Guide (2009) indicated that children in eight to nine years old are
normally busy and in active and experience frequent accidents doing physical activity.
Also, it was interesting that he called only boyfriends to play soccer. Oswalt (n.d.)
mentioned that children start to be aware of gender identity in middle childhood years. Their
gender identity develops in complexity so that they begin to identify certain activities and
abilities depending on the gender such as Joon Gi calling only boyfriends to play soccer together.
Longe (2011) also described in his book that Elementary school age children are
generally good at a wide variety of physical activities involving the ability to control the large
muscles of the body for walking, running, sitting and crawling.

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Emotional
During the bible class, same age group of students including Joon Gi had bible crossword
worksheet. Students started competing about who was going to be done first. Joon Gi and his
friends were very passionate about finishing the worksheet. Finally, a student finished and
rejoiced winning first place. The rest of students still kept working to finish, but Joon Gi
suddenly slapped the pencil on the table and said Im not going to do this! Then he said, I
dont like it. He was upset because he couldnt take a first place.
According to the textbook, by second or third grade children begin to evaluate themselves
in comparison to others; that is called social comparison. When they have difficulty in lessons or
they feel fall behind, they compare themselves to others. They tend to have poorer self-concepts
(Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2000).
Also, a research article by Harter said that the peer group influences adolescent goals and
affects their perceptions of general self-competence. Academic competence is not as strong as
self-reported physical and social competence (Harter 1990).
There was a new child in the Sunday school. Joon Gi was very unfriendly and even
hostile towards the child. Later, Joon Gi said to me that he did not like the new student. Joon Gi
has strong likes or dislikes towards friends.
Slavin (2015) stated that middle-aged children classify their peers as popular children
who are named most often by peers and rejected children who are named often as disliked by
their peers (Parke & Clarke-Stewart, 2011).

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Philosophical
Joon Gi does not follow the church rules or Sunday school principles. He does not listen
or obey his teacher. He is a very nice child in front of his parents. He definitely obeys his mom.
However, he does not listen if his parents are not there. His bible class teacher asked him to stand
and sing with the group together. However, he was just sitting and put his hands over his ears.
Piaget (1964) found that children did not conscientiously use and follow rules until the
age of 10 or 12 years, when children are capable of formal operations. Middle-aged children
understand the rules and know what they should do. Also, six to ten years olds at the stage of
heteronomous morality have been shown to make distinctions between rules that parents are
justified in making and enforcing and rules that are under personal or peer jurisdiction (Keenan
& Evans, 2010).
Joon Gi kept playing with his cell phone during the service, so a teacher tried to take it
away from him. However, he did not give his phone. Instead, he put his phone in his pocket.
Grunberg et al, (1985) found that around age 7, children have become more aware of the
importance of individual ownership. Joon Gi was afraid of the phone he just got being taken
away.

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Social
There was a group project. Children were separated into random groups. In Joon Gis
group, there were only kindergartners and primary children. Joon Gi was the oldest. After Joon
Gi checked his group, he said, I dont want to be in this group. Slavin (2015) stated that
children can figure out who is more able and who is less able by the end (or more earlier) of an
elementary year. Joon Gi did not like the group because there were students who were younger
than him.
He gets along with adults. After church, he stayed with the Sunday school teachers and a
few more adults because his mom came late to pick him up. He talked well and enjoyed the
adults conversation. Youell (2008) states that eight and nine-year-old children are looking ahead
to phase of adult life and childrens potential is growing being adults and relationships with
adults.
Joon Gis a best friend in the church is Ian. They have been friends for three years.
During this summer vacation, Ian went to California so he was absent from Sunday school. Then,
Joon Gi kept asking, Why didnt he come to church? When is he coming back? Slavin
(2015) stated that when children enter middle childhood, friendship becomes more stable and
reciprocal. At this age, friends are often described in terms of personal traits (My friend Mary
is nice), and friendships are based on mutual support, caring, loyalty, and mutual give-andtake.

Intellectual
He has low-concentration. During the sermon, he was folding the weekly newspaper,
checked the clock more than three times, talked with a friend who sat next to him, poked a child
who sat in front of him, went out to bathroom, and then five minutes later when he came back
from the bathroom, he asked again for water. It seemed he couldnt concentrate on the sermon.
Gottfried (2002) mentioned that a longer attention span is generally found in older children than
in younger children, and in girls more often than in boys. Also, he found that children are
usually able to maintain a longer attention span when performing tasks that match their abilities
and interests.
He speaks both Korean and English. He couldnt speak fluent English until he entered
elementary school. He has learned English in school from teachers and friends. Sequential
bilingual acquisition most often occurs when a family immigrates after the child has learned the
familys native language and is then introduced to a second language in school (Watson, 1995).
According to the textbook, it stated that children who started kindergarten as a language minority
are fully proficient in English by the end of kindergarten. Also, those students reach English
national achievement norms (Kieffer, 2011).

PEPSI Graph

Above chart shows Joon Gis PEPSI development degree.

Physical: Joon Gi has higher physical development degree than age norm.
Emotional: He has a poor emotional development level than age norm.
Philosophical: He has poor philosophical development level than the age norm.
Social: He has an average mean in the social area.
Intellectual: He has an average mean in the intellectual area.

Recommendations for Parents

Based on the observation of Joon Gi for four weeks. He is a very active and socialized child.
However, I found that he is a little wild and volatile compared to his age group of children. I
believe he keenly needs his parents. He normally spends time with his friends or in the
neighbors home. There is no one who can discipline and take care of Joon Gi in a right way
besides his parents. He needs more affection, caring, attention and family time. He seems really
good at physical activity. However, except in the physical area, he needs more improvement in
the other areas. For the emotional and social areas, he requires more communication with others.
His parent may ask him about school, friends, what did he eat today to help him develop
communication skills and also, he may feel like he is being more cared for and getting attention.
Also, his parents should provide experiences that let him succeed, feel good about himself, and
maintain his enthusiasm and creativity. This might help him to grow a strong self-concept and
healthy self-esteem. Based on the observation, he knew what wrong behavior is and what right
behavior is. However, there was no one who disciplined him about his wrong behavior or praised
him when his behavior was right. Parents may need to simultaneously react on his behavior
whether good or bad.

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References
Child Development Guide: 8-9 Years. (2009, November 12). Retrieved June 24, 2015, from
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Child_Guide_Eight/
Chapman, J., Tunmer, W., & Prochnow, J. (2000) Early reading-related skills and performance,
reading self-concept, and the development of academic self-concept: A longitudinal
study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(4), 703-708.
Grunberg, N. E., Maycock, V. A., & Anthony, B. J. (1985). Material altruism in children.
Gottfried, N. W. (2002). Attention Span. In N. J. Salkind (Ed.), Child Development (p. 40). New
York: Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved from
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5f6e5bf532d07907d917 Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 6, 111.
Harter, S. (1990). Causes, correlates and the functional role of self-worth: A life-span
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New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Keenan, T., & Evans,S. (2010). An introduction to child development. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.
Kieffer, M. (2011). Converging trajectories: Reasing growth in language minority learners and
their classmates, kindergarten to grade 8. American Educational Research Journal, 48(5),
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Piaget, J. (1964). The moral judgement of the child. New York, NY: Free Press.

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Slavin, R. (2015). Social, Moral, and Emotional Development. In Educational psychology:
Theory and practice (11th ed., p. 59). Boston: Pearson.
Longe, J. (2011). Middle Childhood Development. In The Gale Encyclopedia of Children's
Health: Infancy Through Adolescence (2nd ed., Vol. 3, p. 1468). Detroit, Mich.: Gale.
Oswalt, A. (n.d.). Gender Identity and Sexual Development. Retrieved June 25, 2015.
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Jessica Kingsley.
Watson, C. (1995) Helping families from other cultures decide onhow to talk to their child with
language delays, Wig Wag magazine, Hanen Centre, Ontario, Winter.