FHS 1500-001

Baylee Warner
01 April 2018
Observation 2

4 Years Old
“Tyler”
Daddy Day Care
There were 3 adults with about 14 children.

Biological Development
During my observation I noticed that Tyler looked slimmer with more muscle definition
than younger children do. Berger had another explanation for this writing, “During early
childhood, children slim down as the legs and arms lengthen and fat turns to muscle…[g]one are
the toddler’s protruding belly, round face, short limbs, and large head. The center of gravity
moves from the breast to the belly enabling...motor skills” (168).
Throughout my observation I also noticed that Tyler was able to do many different things by
himself that a child who was younger would not be able to do. For example he could put his own
shoes on, go to the bathroom, and brush his teeth without any assistance. Kathleen Berger in her
book, ​Invitation to the Lifespan​ explained why children are able to do things they could not when
they were younger. “As the body gains strength, children develop motor skills, both gross motor
skills (such as skipping) and fine motor skills (such as drawing)” (170). So according to Berger,
children in the age group that are in preschool (3-5) are losing fat, gaining muscle, and are
increasing their motor skills which allows them to be able to do things without assistance from
parents or guardians anymore.

Cognitive Development
Tyler was able to form complete sentences and have full conversation with other children
and adults, and is blunt while conversing. Summarizing what Berger said is that children that are
age 4 have a vocabulary of 3,000 to 10,000 words and their sentences are usually 5 to 20 words
long. Their grammar has also improved immensely with them being able to use “dependent
clauses, tags at sentence end, (“...didn’t I” “ ...won’t you?”)” (189). In other words, children at
age four have a rather large vocabulary and have almost gotten down all of the grammar that
they need to have for effective communication. Another thing Tyler did that showed cognitive
development was that he was able to recall and remind others of things that had happened a
while back. On this account a passage in Berger’s book describes what is going on. “The
prefrontal cortex...is called the executive of the brain because planning, prioritizing, and
reflection occur there. Maturation of this area allows young children to begin to plan ahead as
well as thing about past experiences” (178). Another way to put this is that when the front part of
the brain of a child matures enough they are able to plan ahead as well as remember things that
have happened in the past, which explains why Tyler was able to remember something that he
would not have remembered while he was younger.

Psychosocial Development
Throughout the time of my observation I noticed that Tyler seemed shy and liked to
watch others, but once he warmed up he would run around with the other children and do what
they did like running around the yard and yelling, etc. Tyler’s actions show two different types of
play, these types of play are: “Onlooker play: A child watches other children play. … [and]
Associative play: Children interact, sharing material, buty their play is not reciprocal” (Berger
213). Another thing that I notice Tyler would do was imitate or copy what his father was doing.
This could be considered sociodramatic play. “[S]ociodramatic play, in which children act out
various roles.” (Berger 214). So when Tyler copies what his dad is doing he is actually trying to
be ‘play his dad’s role’. Yet another thing I observed Tyler do was that he would listen while his
caregivers were describing how to play football so that they could all play it. According to
Berger that is a normal occurance when children are around the preschool age. “[Children older
than 2] keep the [active play] interaction fair, long-lasting, and fun….they set rules.” So while
Tyler was trying to learn how to play football he was learning a set of rules so that he and his
friends could be able to play longer and have more fun with one another.

Reference List
Berger, K. S. (2014). ​Invitation to the life span (2nd ed.)​. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.