RUNNING HEAD: MY VIRTUAL CHILD PAPER #1

My Virtual Child Paper #1

Steven Clark
Ivy Tech Community College

MY VIRTUAL CHILD PAPER #1

INTASC Standard, Description and Rationale

Standard #1: Learner Development

The teacher understands how learners grow and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning
and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional,
and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging
learning experiences.

Name of Artifact: My Virtual Child Paper #1

Date: February 21, 2015
Course: EDUC 121

Brief Description: For this assignment, I have observed the development of My Virtual Child
from infant to toddler stage of life. I will give descriptions of the childs behavior and one or
more examples that relate to them from what is covered in the class textbook.

Rationale: To document my understanding of Standard #1, Learner Development, I have

answered eight questions regarding the development of My Virtual Child from infant to toddler,
giving examples of the progression and the correlation to the textbook. This will demonstrate a
knowledge and understanding of the early development of a learner.

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The purpose of this paper is to describe the behavior of My Virtual Child from infancy to
a toddler. My Virtual Child is female and I have named her Ava, which I will refer to her as
through the remainder of this paper. Through the process of raising Ava she has gone through a
nine month Pediatricians report and nineteen month developmental testing in the My Virtual
Child program which will be used as a part of the observation. Included will be examples from
the class textbook to support the behavior of Ava at the different stages of her development.
The typical nine month old is recommended to be breast-fed until two years old and solid
food introduced ant six months old (UNICEF, 2010, p. 106), Ava was breast fed until three
months and moved to formula after with the introduction of baby food at six months old. This is
a slight variation from the recommended cycle but in developed nations about half of mothers
stop breast-feeding by six months so they can return to full-time work (Control, 2012, p. 106).
The nine month report from the virtual child program recommended that Ava should get a larger
variety of baby food and ground up fruits and vegetables. The introduction to formula was to
accommodate the return to work. Avas sleep habits are currently on schedule with the typical
child at nine months. She does wake at times through the night but will easily go back to sleep.
The normal sleep for a child until the age of three is eleven hours (Snell, 2007, p. 104). The
motor development described in Avas nine month old Pediatricians Report from My Virtual
Child program described her as advanced in gross and fine motor skills. It also said that she
enjoyed crawling, pulling up to stand and manipulating objects. The typical child at Avas age
should be at this pace according to the fine motor skills explanation in the textbook for class
(Kail, 2015, p. 148). At this time Ava is average in her eating habits and sleep patterns. She is
considered above average by the pediatricians report but the textbook would lead me to think
that she is at an average pace with her motor skills as well.

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Avas attachment relationship is developing at an average pace. She is naturally more

attached to her mother than me, a close second, as the virtual child program states. This would be
due to her mother feeding, bathing, and changing her more frequently than I. I draw this
conclusion from Bowlby, who stated, by seven or eight months most infants single out the
attachment figure, usually the mother, as an individual that is special (Bowlby, 1969, p. 312).
This is the third phase of four established by him, all four phases are pre-attachment, attachment
in the making, true attachment, and reciprocal relationships. Fathers are not usually the
attachment figure due to the mother being the primary caregiver for much of the beginning years
of a childs life, with the father being involved more in the arena of physical play rather than
reading or bathing (Lamb, 2010, p. 313). There is also a study done by Mary Ainsworth called
the strange situation (Ainsworth, 1978, p. 313) which defines four types of attachments (Kail,
2015, p. 314). The four attachments are secure attachment, avoidant attachment, resistant
attachment, and disorganized (disoriented) attachment. Ava is considered to be in the secure
attachment according to the virtual child nineteen month developmental testing. This would
mean that she may or may not cry when her mother leaves and wants to be with her upon return,
even will cease crying when her mother comes in. In these instances Bowlby seems to be more
toward the nature side and Ainsworth is more to the nurture side of human development as
defined in the textbook (Kail, 2015, p. 16). The developmental testing did recommend that Ava
stay with one primary pre-school or daycare during the day and get to know other adults slowly.
It also recommended that both parents should try to read Avas reactions more carefully and work
on interpersonal communication with her. Avas secure attachment to her parents gives optimism
that continuous exposure to high-quality parenting that promotes secure attachment in infancy
and positive social relationships in childhood and adolescence (Kail, 2015, p. 316).

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To describe the changes that Ava has gone through with her problem solving and
exploratory behavior I plan to list them with Piagets theory and four stages of cognitive
development. Piagets theory states that, first, assimilation happens when new experiences are
incorporated into existing theories of the child, second, accommodation occurs when theories are
modified based on experience, and third, when disequilibrium happens they reorganize their
theories to return to a state of equilibrium (Kail, 2015, pp. 162,163). Through this theory he
developed four stages of development. These stages are the sensorimotor stage, the
preoperational stage, the concrete stage, and the formal operational stage. The first stage, the
sensorimotor stage, which goes from birth to two years of age. During this stage the child
progresses from simple actions to symbolic processing (Kail, 2015, p. 163). In correlation to this
stage at three months Ava was showing more interest in her surroundings, smiling at familiar
people and toys, and able to laugh at surprising or funny things (like a dog). She is also
developing lots of cute little habits. At eight months Ava was able to use gestures to indicate
what she wants, and is very happy to play the hiding game, as long as she is not distracted from
the object too long. Both of these actions fall into the first stage. The second stage, the
preoperational stage, is from age two to seven and is marked by the use of symbols to represent
objects and events (Kail, 2015, p. 165). Ava is in the beginning of this stage currently. She
understands a couple of dozen words and has said her first clear word and pointed to the object
which was a dog. The third stage, the concrete operational stage, ranges from age seven to age
eleven and children solve problem and reason using mental operations during this stage (Kail,
2015, p. 167). Ava is not currently exhibiting any of these operations currently and has not begun
this stage to date. The final stage, the formal operational stage, spans from roughly age eleven to
adulthood and is responsible for the application of mental operations to abstract entities. Which

MY VIRTUAL CHILD PAPER #1

means they begin to think hypothetically and reason deductively (Kail, 2015, p. 167). Ava is not
in this stage either, she is not developed enough at this time to fit in this category.
Avas temperament can be analyzed best by using the five aspects of temperament that
are listed in the Virtual Child program. The initial aspect is activity, which refers to the physical
and mental activity of the child. Highly emotional children sleep less and tend to be involved in
more physical activity, and less emotional children trend to sleep more and engage in quieter less
physical activities (California, 2015, p. 3). Ava fits into the highly emotional side of this
category. At three months old Ava was awake more than most babies and seemed to be in
constant motion according to the program notes. At eighteen months Ava is almost always on the
go from morning to night, and usually only takes a short nap during the day. Ava is frequently
awake late into the evening or early in the morning as well, as stated by the Virtual Child
program (California, 2015, p. 6/15). The second aspect is sociability, defined as, a childs
friendliness and desire for social interaction (California, 2015, p. 7). This ranges from low to
high, Avas report from the developmental testing at nineteen months indicated that she got along
with other kids well after warming up, and was unusually cooperative for a child at her age. This
would lead me to assume that Ava is at the higher end of the range. The third aspect is
emotionality, which refers to the intensity of emotion experienced by the child (California, 2015,
p. 7). Ava rarely got tense or emotional during the observation, indicating that she is on the less
emotional side of the scale. The forth aspect is aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness, which is as it
sounds. The child is aggressive in their surroundings or cooperative. The Virtual Child program
stated that Ava was, as cited earlier, unusually cooperative for her age, she was cheerful in play
sessions, and rarely became tense or emotional during the observation (California, 2015, p. 7).
The fifth aspect is self-control, which refers to the childs ability to control his or her behavior

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(California, 2015, p. 7). During the evaluation Ava was able to concentrate well through the
testing and would be more than ready for pre-school activities if it continued. The study done by
Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess classified babies as easy or difficult (Thomas, 1968, pp.
304,305). It stated that slow to warm up babies, like Ava, were often unhappy, but this is to the
contrary with Ava, is was an easy and happy baby thus far.
Ava is advanced, according to the nineteen month developmental evaluation, in her gross
motor skills and above age norms for building block tower and other special skills. Based on my
understanding of nature-nurture there is not defined reason for Avas advanced state in this area.
Heredity of the parents is an important factor, whether both parents have any pre-disposed
genetic disorders or not, both parents in Avas case are not at risk. This only becomes a positive
contributor if her environment is stable and healthy. For Ava, the environment that she has been
exposed to has assisted her abilities in refining her gross motor skills and special abilities at a
more advanced rate than in other areas. If Ava were in a different environment, the above may
not be true based solely on her DNA. While the environment that she has been raised in may
seem to be the most obvious determiner, it would not matter if there were a genetic disorder, in
many cases. It is my opinion, from my understanding of nature-nurture, that one factor directly
affects the other and can only enhance or deter any advanced development.
Avas communication is moving along at a typical rate at the current time. The
developmental evaluation did stress that my partner and I spend as much time as possible talking
and asking questions to her. This was due to her being at an age appropriate level for
communication skill and being in such an important period of language development. The
communication with Ava should be more than yes or no responses and should include looking
and naming things like in a picture book (California, 2015, p. 7).

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Progression of normal toddler issues such as learning household rules, following routines,
listening to parents, developing self-control and getting along with other children are at a normal
level currently. Ava has an occasional time that she may say no if asked to do something, but
typically does what is asked of her. She gets along with other children well, but can be shy or
stand-offish around new adults. These seem to be of normal actions for most children and
abnormal in the frequency of occurrences. The data to corroborate these actions is stated earlier
in this paper when defining and describing Avas temperament.
In analyzing parenting philosophy and practices in my partner and I, I would say that we
agree with the theory of Vygotsky more so than Piaget. Piaget set the groundwork for the field of
child development, but there are weaknesses in his theory. These have been identified as
underestimating cognitive competence in infants and young children and overestimating
cognitive competence in adolescents, a vagueness concerning mechanisms of change, the stage
model does not account for variability in childrens performance, and the influence of the
sociocultural environment on cognitive development was undervalued (Kail, 2015, pp. 170,171).
While Vygotskys theory factors these weaknesses and accounts more for the sociocultural
perspective which includes more of the environmental influence. His theory with guided
participation and teaching to the learners needs. This is a basic form of philosophy being used to
raise Ava. I also agree with the breakdown and components in the textbook of information
processing. The text compared computers to children in that both consist of hardware and
software, only the childs would be all mental and the computer all components. The sensory
memory for a child like a picture stored in a computer, the working memory acting like the
random-access memory in a computer, and long-term memory working like a hard drive would
in the computer (Kail, 2015, pp. 175-177). This is a great analogy for me to utilize when trying

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to understand the working process of Avas processing of information. The procedure known as
the strange situation by Mary Ainsworth also has a lasting imprint on the developmental
philosophy of Ava. The comparison to how Ava acts in group, new, or unfamiliar settings can
help to assist in her adaptability to those situations. The secure, avoidant, resistant, or
disorganized attachment (Ainsworth, Attachment as related to mother-infant interaction, 1993, p.
314) that Ava may exhibit when in these forums can ultimately help us, the parents, to change or
re-inforce the practices that we currently use. If she needs to be introduced to more adults or
larger groups is an example of changes that could be made in correlation to the comparison of
these situations and the strange situation procedure.
Overall Ava is progressing developmentally as a normal child of her age. There are
aspects of her development that are advanced and above the norm. This, in my opinion, is typical
of many children at the same stage of life. Each being advanced in different, and particular to
their genetic and environmental influence. Any parent can make the average or normal seem
extraordinary in their biased observation. I hope to have presented the facts in this paper to show
Avas true development up to this stage of her life.

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10

References
Ainsworth, M. S. (1978). The development of infant-mother attachment. Review of
child development research (Vol. 3), 1-94.
Ainsworth, M. S. (1993). Attachment as related to mother-infant interaction.
Advances in Infancy Research 8, 1-50.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss (Vol. 1). New York: Basic Books.
California, U. o. (2015, February 22). My Virtual Child. Retrieved from My Virtual
Child: http://www.myvirtualchild.com/dashboard.html
Control, U. C. (2012). Breastfeeding report card- United States. Atlanta : U.S.
Centers for Disease Control.
Kail, R. V. (2015). Children and Their Development. In R. V. Kail, Children and Their
Development (pp. 44-47). Indianapolis: Pearson.
Lamb, M. E. (2010). The development and signigicance of father-child relationships
in two-parent families. The role of the father in child development, 94-153.
Snell, E. K. (2007). Sleep and the body mass index and overweight status of
children and adolescents. Indianapolis: Child Development.
Thomas, A. C. (1968). Temperament and behavior disorder in children. New York:
New York University Press.
UNICEF. (2010). Facts for life (4th ed.). New York: UNICEF.