CHILD OBSERVATION REPORT
For about 4 consecutive days, I was able to observed Joachim, a 3 year-old boy, in their
house as I babysit his younger sister. To give you a little background, Joachim is the 3 rd born
among the 4 children of both busy parents and his language is not developed yet. When
Joachim’s mother was leaving for work, he was left with her nanny and his gadgets. The whole
day, he spent most of his time watching different videos on YouTube without the supervision of
his nanny. Though he has 2 older siblings aged 13 and 12, his sisters were also busy with their
own lives playing with their own gadgets, and often times they talk with Joachim in a “baby
talk” way, which I think make things worse for him to adapt with languge development.
In terms of language development, I go with Vygotsky’s principles in Social
Development Theory, where he emphasized the social interaction’s vital role in the development
of cognition. In order to gain much understanding, Vygotsky introduced his two main principles:
the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
In Joachim’s case, I find it hard to point out the MKO that could help him to develop his
language, because no one is teaching him how to. I can sense that Joachim is confused with his
language which made him sometimes mute; he barely speaks right word for a thing. What made
me say that he is confused, here are my observations: he was watching kid’s videos on YouTube
with different languages like English, Korean, Japanese and Spanish; her nanny speaks Bicol, her
siblings speak Tagalog and her mother speaks in English while talking to him. Joachim is
confused of the language or the mother tongue he has to use. No one is teaching him those basic
words appropriate for his age. Having a conversation with Joachim is like a guessing game
where you have to guess what he really want to do, and if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will
cry. To stop him from crying, his mother would give him the phone and play videos on
YouTube. His case is complicated and he needs to be supervised.
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Franceen R. Restubog
