Reference no: EM133133101

What were some of the physical challenges he/she faced? What stages during your child's life were you most concerned with his/her physical development? How did you work as a parent to help them overcome them? Give specific parenting strategies you utilized to handle physical challenges.

As Nancy turns 9 months, the pediatrician has the following to say after a routine physical exam, a few items administered from the Bayley Scales of Infant Intelligence, and some observations of Nancy in the playroom:

Nancy is cautious and shy in most new situations or with new people. With you present, she will eventually explore, but rarely warms up completely to the strange situation or person.Nancy has typical emotional reactions for her age, such as fear of total strangers, separation anxiety and a quick, loud cry when upset or in pain.

Nancy's motor skills are typical for age: crawling, sitting up, and standing up, but not walking yet.

When Nancy becomes upset, it is difficult to soothe her down. She sometimes accepts your embraces and sometimes pushes you away.Based on your report, Nancy is able to digest new foods well, so the doctor recommends that Nancy eat a variety of foods from the family dinner (ground up).

The preschool that you are considering for Nancy offers low-priced developmental assessments. Nancy is able to enroll when she becomes reasonably well potty-trained. She is 19 months old now. Just to find out how Nancy's development compares to other children of her age at this point, you have an assessment done. The early childhood specialist observes Nancy in free play with other kids and does a little testing of cognitive skills. She reports the following:

After she got warmed up, Nancy seemed to get along very well with the other kids, and was unusually cooperative for a child of her age. The examiner thought that Nancy would adapt well to the preschool environment.

Nancy was about average for gross motor development. The examiner recommended that you give her plenty of opportunities to play on indoor and outdoor play gyms and to play games of catch and kickball with you.

Nancy was shy with the examiner, who thought she was nervous around new adults or just didn't know what to do. She recommended that Nancy stay with one primary preschool or daycare provider during the day and get to know other new adults slowly.The specialist thought that Nancy was securely attached, but that the communication system between parent and child could be improved. She recommended that both parents try to read Nancy's reactions more carefully and work on interpersonal communication.

The examiner commented that Nancy was able to concentrate very well during all of the informal testing, and if this continues, she would be more than ready for preschool-type activities, which typically require children to stay on task or remain in "group time" for 10-15 minutes. She also recommended getting Nancy to follow simple directions at home, gradually increasing the complexity and length of the directions.

Nancy was age-appropriate on tasks such as building a block tower to model one made by the examiner and other spatial skills such as copying shapes, coloring within the lines and solving picture puzzles.

Nancy scored at about the 18-19 month range for communication skill, language comprehension and language production. This is age-appropriate of course, but the examiner recommended that because Nancy was in such an important period of language development, that you spend as much time as possible talking with Nancy, asking questions that require some kind of extended answer (rather than just "yes" or "no"), and looking at and naming things in picture books, etc.Nancy was generally in a positive mood during the play sessions, but occasionally could be irritable or impatient when things did not go her way.