A case study of a child in adverse circumstances

A Case Study

This assignment is an analysis of a case study of a child in adverse circumstances and involves a description of the child’s possible emotional development from conception to age 6 as interpreted from evidence given in the source. Students are obliged to take a practitioner’s standpoint with a particular emphasis on the child’s emotional development and feelings.

Reports and Biographies for the Case Study.

The task is to focus on the child in the report or biography provided (not on the teenager or adult) and use the knowledge from child development and emotional development of children in adversity to provide a view of the child that shows respect for the individual’s situation. You will explain how the child’s emotional life and understanding of his/herself were established; try to identify what the young person felt, and; the reasons behind his or her disposition within the scope outlined below. You are required to infer from the evidence, the details of the child or young person’s emotional development.

You should, for example, explain why, at a given age, s/he appeared so difficult a child, and what you assess might be done to help her/him. The essential point is that you must infer from the evidence given. [Under no circumstance is missing evidence to be fabricated or imagined].

In more detail, this is how to work through the assignment.

In any report on a child, we would have a brief descriptive statement and in your report, you will include as an attachment a genogram. Instructions for constructing a genogram will be given.

First, consider the nature of the child’s prenatal situation, birth, and infancy. What positive and what negative developments took place and why? Can we infer anything as occurring at this stage concerning her/his later behaviour?

Second, consider her/his dependency needs as an infant. Were her/his instrumental needs met?

Third, what about her/his emotional dependency? This brings us to the type of attachment or attachments that s/he might have formed. What does the evidence suggest? What type of attachment does her/his current behaviour suggest? Who was available for attachment purposes?

Fourth, what about her/his temperament? How does her/his possible temperament relate to her/his early behaviour and is it reflected in her/his later behaviour? How does temperament relate to ‘goodness of fit’ in this case?

Fifth, consider her/his possible position as a toddler (i.e. in Toddlerhood). You should infer developments in the area of secondary social emotions and theory of mind.

Sixth, consider her/him as a child at pre-school (Early Childhood). How would you describe her/him at this stage? What did s/he learn at pre-school? Did s/he learn display rules? It might be in one of these cases, that the child’s cognitive development was not hindered but how can that be? Is it a matter solely of inheritance? What went right and

what went wrong? It might also be that in one of these cases, the child’s cognitive development was hindered, how? Has there been any remediation and again, what went right?

Why did s/he not become very anxious or hyperactive and aggressive or neither? Why did s/he act out her/his feelings or why not?

Seventh, go on to primary school and infer her/his emotional relations both at home and at school. Do not go beyond primary school age.

Now summarise the young person’s emotional history and infer future risk of harm and, say why you think that? Are there any hopeful elements in his/her current position? What is the “type of child”? Is s/he essentially a normal child who has suffered misfortune, or one whose nurturance has been inconsistent, or one who has hardly had any nurturance at all? Give the child an ACE score. Instructions for scoring for Adverse Childhood Experiences will be given.

Eighth, Is there any evidence in this case for transgenerational effects?

Choose one point in this child’s life until age 5. Suggest one evidence-based intervention or program that could have been implemented. Name the intervention and say when and how and who could have done this and what benefit you think it might have had for the young person? Back up any argument or position with evidence-based sources.

Your answer will be an account of the child’s emotional development that uses headings as listed below and in those sections uses all the phrases in bold above. It will in some way, answer all of the subsidiary questions posed in the above paragraphs. It will be no more than 2500 words in length. It will not be in essay form. Note carefully the presentation requirements in the Marking Criteria Chart below.

This case report must be written under the following compulsory headings.

Please note you will have a short section giving the biographical details of the young person in the first paragraph. You will have a genogram in your paper – in an appendix. (There will be a tutorial on how to construct a genogram).