Individual Differences Student

Individual Differences Student Profile: Sally Green

By Brittany Ferguson
College of Western Idaho
Instructor: Natalie Raass
EDUC 205: Development/ Individual Differences

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This individual differences student profile is about Sally green. The following pages will
reveal the general information, physical development, cognitive development, and socialemotional development. Sally is currently classified as Developmentally Delayed. This means
that she is behind her peers at certain milestones but there is no apparent reason as to why she is
behind just yet. Although, she does have good relationships with her peers she has some selfesteem issues. These issues are due to her below peer level cognitive development.
General Information
Sally Green is seven (7) years and four (4) months old as of May 2015. She is female in
gender and gender identity. Her ethnicity is Caucasian non-Hispanic. Her family unit and support
system is both nuclear and extended. Sally has a nuclear family including her mother and father
together, not separated. Sally herself and at least one sibling. I am not sure as to how many
siblings due to that information being withheld for privacy reasons. I do however know Sally has
a little sister. She loves to talk about her. After looking over all the information disclosed about
the family it is apparent that Sally is the only Green family member with a disability at this time.
The Family activity setting, or daily schedule, for sally is full of high levels of Cohesion. Sally
is given many opportunities to act independently and freely make decisions. Sally wakes up most
mornings by either her father or mother. She is taken and dropped off at school typically by her
mother and picked up in the afternoon typically by her father. While at school she spends a
mixture of her time in the general education room and a mixture of the time in the resource
room. Sally spends a total of three (3) hours and twenty-five (25) minutes in the resource room
for special services. She typically is pulled out of the general education room during the subjects
of reading, math, and writing. The remaining subjects and activities she is in the general

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education room for, including recess. The school she attends is an Inclusion school. The school
tries to keep exceptional children with their peers as much as possible. She has no after school
therapies to attend. The Green family spends the afternoon and evenings together working on
the skills Sally works on within the classroom each day.
Physical Development
Sally Green is seven (7) years and four (4) months old. She has dark blonde hair and blue
eyes. Her ethnicity is Caucasian non-Hispanic. She is four (4) feet and six (6) inches. She is in
the average for her class. As of now she has no known vision, hearing or chronic health
problems. She is in good health and physical fitness. She can play and keep up or out run her
peers on any given day. She eats a mostly nutritious snack and lunch every school day. Overall,
physical maturation is at level with her peers. The Large muscles development is at level with
peers and at the appropriate milestones. However, the small muscle development is slightly
below the level of peers. She is right hand dominant and has trouble holding and writing with
pencils or other writing utensil. Her handwriting is mostly unreadable. With that being said, she
tries very hard to make her handwriting neat. She often erases multiple times and tries again.
Cognitive Development
Sally Green is in the first grade. She spends most of her day in the general education
room. She is pulled out for special services for three (3) hours and twenty-five (25) minutes each
day in the resource room. She has a history of poor academic achievement and incomplete work.
She has academic strengths in science, music and art. She has academic weaknesses in reading,
writing, math, spelling, and history. She has a short attention span. She does get distracted easily
but can be brought back into the assignment without incident. As for participation, she does
enjoy participating and is willing to participate in anything hands on. She does not participate in

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any verbal activities due to her speech difficulties. She has a high level of motivation but low
initiative. She needs constant prompting and reminding.
Sally should be at the end of the Preoperational stage and going into the Concrete
operations stage of Piagets stages of cognitive development. She should be going from
learning about language and symbols and egocentrism to cause and effect and conservation. She
is still in the preoperational stage for cognitive development by Piaget. She is behind in language
skills. She should already have an understanding of letters and numbers as well as the most basic
use for them. However, she has not made these connections yet. She shows signs of a secondary
language disorder, a language disorder caused by another condition. She had severe difficulty
with articulation and decoding. These two refer to her ability to produce sounds and translate
the written work into spoken word. Sally also shows signs of a lack of working memory. She
has difficulty in retaining information just spoken or repeated to her. She also had trouble
recalling information she has heard sometime before being asked. For example she has many
gaps when asked to recite the number line.
Socio-emotional Development
Sally had right at or above average socio-emotional development. Her interactions with
her peers are normal first grade interactions. She is asked to join play groups during recess and
lunch. Her interactions with adults are also normal. She shows respect at the typical first grader
level. Her self-concept, or being able to distinguish oneself from others, is about average. She
noticed the differences in how she speaks verses her peers. But, she has on trouble making
friends or being herself. Her self-esteem is a below average. The speech delay makes talking
with her peers at their level of speech difficult. She puts in a lot of effort to make the friendships
work. She often gets discouraged after the first try and prefers to quit. Either she can accomplish

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the task within the first two tried or she assumes she cannot complete it at all. When placed on
Eriksons Stages of psychosocial development she is in autonomy vs shame and doubt, while
her peers are in the industry vs inferiority.
Summary, Conclusions, Implications
Sally Green is not at typical development in each of these areas. She is at level with her
peers in the general, physical levels. She is an average developing girl. Her home life and
physical being are not being detrimental in any way. She is below her peers in the cognitive and
socio-emotional levels. This is because of her developmental delays. She is not able to be at the
same level at then academically and emotionally. Sally is a great girl. She has strengths in hands
on activities and activities that do not require a lot of verbalization. She need help in speech,
articulation, decoding and memory skills. If these skills improve she will be able to be at an
average level with her peers. As well as, her academics will improve drastically. She needs some
accommodations to help her make up the gaps in academics. She needs to be pulled into the
resource room for one on one speech help. She needs shortened work with key points stressed
above all. She needs constant guidance and reminders. Lets not forget to give her a lot of
repetition of words and sounds. These accommodations will make her successful in overcoming
and coping with her disability.

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Reference
Hallahan, D. P., Kauffman, J. M., & Pullen, P. C. (2015). Exceptional Learners An Introduction
to Special Education (13th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.