A Study of the General Development of the Pre-School Child by Means of Record Forms
- Author:
Agatha H. Bowley, Ph.D.
Psychologist, Dundee Child Guidance Clinic The nucleus of character, of mental and physical health, is laid in the pre-school years. For that reason alone a careful study of all phases of development at this age is worth while.
The practical purpose of the research scheme described in this article was to devise a record form which might prove of value in estimating the general develop- ment of Nursery School children, and elucidate the factors which appear to hinder 0r assist a child in making a satisfactory adjustment to his environment. The main considerations in selecting observational items were : 1. That the items should be of diagnostic value, i.e. should throw into relief certain aspects of development.
2. That they should not be too numerous, as teachers usually have not the time to make detailed observations. 3. That they should be related to the known stages of child development. 4. That they should refer to every aspect of child development. The aspects of development especially studied were : 1. Physical development. 2. Mental or intellectual development. 3. Language development. 4. Social and emotional development. The following environmental conditions of the child’s development were taken into consideration 1. Length of attendance at the Nursery School or clinic play group. 2. Economic status of the family, classified according to income level. 3. Parental marital circumstances, whether there had been a death, divorce, separation or re-marriage. 4. The child’s position in the family. The number and ages of the siblings. 5. The general psychological atmosphere in the home, described as serene, easy-going, irritable, excitable, indifferent, etc., and the presence or absence of discipline and affection.
6. Sleeping arrangements and play space at home. Physical development was assessed by a letter rating (A, B, C) made by the Nursery School teacher, by information re age of teething, weaning, walking, number of illnesses, and any special disabilities obtained from the medical report, and from a scale of gross motor development consisting of ten items such as : Can he go downstairs one foot at a time ? Can he go upstairs one foot at a time ? Can he jump 1, 2 or 3 steps ? Can he catch large balls ? Does he enjoy climbing ?
and a score was obtained from the scale.
Intellectual development was assessed by means of an Intelligence Test. I tested the majority of the 120 children myself on the Merrill-Palmer Scale, using Miss Bristol’s norms for British children. In some cases the teachers had obtained an I.Q. themselves, a few on the Terman-Merrill Scale, and in a few cases, only an estimate of mental ability could be obtained from the teacher.
The I.Q. range was from 80-140, excluding a small group of mental defectives in an institution whose I.Q.s ranged from 50-62.
I do not myself attach very great importance to an I.Q. obtained before the age of five years, however reliable the test itself may be considered, because I think emotional factors influence mental productivity too greatly during these years. But an I.Q. is the best measure of intelligence we have at our disposal, and if one is careful to interpret it in the light of personality factors, a good deal of information can be gleaned from it.
Language development was judged by means of a score obtained on a scale consisting of six items chosen to elucidate fluency, and clarity of speech, richness of vocabulary and comprehension of language. A letter rating was given A?F in respect of the mode of language usually employed?naming, exclaiming, commanding, questioning, making statements, or discussing with other children. Teachers were asked to include a few samples of the children’s conversation. Unfortunately very few did.
Data was also sought on the type of play enjoyed most frequently by the child: free muscular, experimental or manipulative, destructive, constructive, or dramatic- imitative; and teachers were asked to record any play incidents they could. As a psychologist, I, of course, attached a good deal of importance to such data, but the majority of the teachers who completed the form did not seem alive to the spontaneous estimate of intellectual and emotional development that the play behaviour of the pre-school child provides and did not complete the section as fully as I had hoped. Social and emotional development was studied as a whole because these two aspects of general development are, in my opinion, essentially interrelated and the stage of social development depends so greatly on the stage of emotional development. For convenience sake, however, the observational items were listed separately. Under general emotional development, eight items were considered as positive factors showing a satisfactory emotional development, e.g.
Does he appear contented, courageous, serene, keen, alert ? Is he normally demonstrative ? Does he conform to restrictions ? The highest score obtainable on this scale was + 8. Eight items were considered as negative factors detracting from a satisfactory adjustment, e.g.
Does he seem anxious or worried over trifles ? Does he cry frequently ? Does he tend to evade difficulties ? Does he seek affection continuously ? The lowest score here would be?8. Teachers were also asked to state whether such characteristics (or neurotic traits as they might be termed if in excess) as: temper tantrums, nail biting, stuttering, masturbation, were observed, and to state any specific fears, of animals, strangers, dirt, noise, etc., which they had noted.
Finally, under: (b) Relationship with adults, (c) Relationship with children, rtems were listed which were designed to bring out the known phases of social develop- ment, viz. dependence, non-co-operation, and co-operation in regard to adults, and aloofness, aggression and active co-operation with children. The two scores obtained for these two relationships were based on rather an arbitrary method but on certain developmental principles.
If the record form had been fully completed the following information about a child was available: Certain numerical scores on a scale of gross motor development, of language development, and of social and emotional development; a letter rating in regard to health, language, and play maturity; the child’s age; mental age; I.Q.; his length of school attendance; details about his home background from an economic and from a psychological standpoint; facts about his health history; and information about undesirable traits, such as fears, tantrums, etc.
On the basis of the various scores it was possible to draw a profile. A total of 120 record forms were received, but were not all fully completed. The age range was from 2 years to 5-9 years (excluding the M.D.s). The I.Q. range was from 80 to 140. The following is the age and I.Q. incidence of the really complete records: Age. No. Per cent. Merrill-Palmer I.Q.s No. Per cent. 2 years .. 10 12 80- 89 6 9 3 years .. 32 38 90- 99 11 17 4 years .. 32 38 100-109 23 35 5 years .. 11 12 110-119 14 22 120 11 17 85 65 60 records were of children from economically inferior homes. 31 records were of children from economically superior homes. 22 records were of pre-school children referred to a Child Guidance Clinic and attend- ing a play group.
7 records were of M.D. children in an institution where ages ranged from 3-8 to 5-0 years. (I.Q.s 50-62.) Eight different teachers besides myself undertook to fill up the forms for children under their charge, and records were obtained from a number of areas, viz.: Byron House School, Highgate, London … … 13 Chelsea Open-Air School, Chelsea, London Somerton Nursery School, London Filton Avenue Nursery School, Bristol Blackness Nursery School, Dundee College School Nursery Class, Dundee Lochrin Nursery School, Edinburgh Reid’s Court Nursery School, Edinburgh Dundee Child Guidance Clinic, Dundee . . North-Western Child Guidance Clinic, London Baldovan Institution for M.D.s, Dundee 18 18 4 6 20 4 8 20 2 7 120 In this way an attempt was made to experiment with the record form on a number of children from a wide variety of social backgrounds and of very different intellectual abilities.
After totalling all the scores it was possible to obtain an average score on each of the four scales of development: gross motor, language, emotional, and social, for 2, 3, 4, and 5 years of age. A maximum and minimum possible score on each scale could also be computed and profiles for these scores drawn. Then when a profile was drawn for a particular child of say 3 years one could judge how much he might deviate from the average of his age group and how distant he was from the maximum or the minimum.
The following are the most important results:
1. As a qualitative estimate of the pre-school child’s general development the record form was found to be adequate if fully completed. A profile can be drawn for each child based on the scores obtained on the various scales; this was found to give an accurate picture of the child in those cases where he or she was well known to the writer.
2. Quantitative results can only be taken with caution as the numbers for the different age groups are rather small. They show, however, that physical and language development as estimated by this scale increase with age, but that emotional and social development do not do so uniformly though scores for five-year-olds tend to be greater than those for lower age levels.
3. Positive correlation of language and gross motor development with age Were found to be + 56, + 53, ( ?-11) respectively.
4. General emotional development and social adjustment to adults and children were found to correlate positively: -53 and -52, ? ? 11 respectively. Social adjustment to adults showed a positive correlation of -45, ? -11 with social adjust- ment to children. Gross motor development correlated positively with social adjust- ment to children to the extent of *52, ? *11.
5. The results on the language development scale were unreliable and anomalous. There appeared to be no evident relation between language and level of I.Q., or superiority of home background. It seems very probable that the teachers were judging from different criteria, being unfamiliar with children from very different backgrounds, and that the rating scale was not sufficiently discriminative.
It seems clear that the most reliable method to estimate this aspect of development would be to record actual sample conversations of the children, but I doubt whether the teachers had time to do this. It would also have been better to have correlated language and mental age rather than their I.Q.
6. Comparative results for children coming from economically superior and mferior homes are interesting, and although numbers are small for any wide generalizations they tend to agree with the findings of other observers. Children from poorer homes showed a superiority in gross motor development earlier than children from more well-to-do homes, but did not retain this at later age levels. Children from poorer homes tended to show a more satisfactory emotional adjustment and showed greater ease in social adjustment, than children from better homes.
These findings may be due to the fact that the slum child gains independence earlier and is usually less protected than the better class child and so gains motor control slightly earlier. The better social-emotional adjustment of the poorer Nursery School child is probably largely accounted for by the fact that the better class type of parent tends usually to send her child to a nursery school if he is presenting some difficulty in adjustment, and also that the working class family is a larger unit, and social adaptation has to be made very quickly by the youngest members if their rights and privileges are to be maintained. The training in the art of social adapta- bility begins earlier in the working class home.
7. Difficulties in emotional development and in social adjustment to children were most marked at three and four years of age. This is a fact well known and reported by many psychologists.
8. Children from psychologically unsatisfactory home backgrounds show very clearly an inferior emotional and social adjustment to children from more satisfactory homes (i.e. judged serene, contented, etc.). 9. The percentage of children showing undesirable traits and difficulties in development (such as fears, tempers, stammering, etc.) is highest among the M.D.s and the children attending the Child Guidance Clinic (100 and 95 per cent, respectively), high among children from superior homes (77 and 83 per cent, in two schools), and lowest among children from inferior homes (30 and 33 per cent, in two schools). 10. Only children tended to be more advanced in language development than either oldest or youngest children probably because they had a greater companionship with adults.
11. ” Oldest ” children found greater difficulty in social adjustment to adults than either ” youngest ” or ” only ” children.
12. The children attending the Child Guidance Clinic had a higher percentage of unsatisfactory home backgrounds than any of the other children.
13. The mentally defective children (7 cases only) whose mental ages fell between three and five years though their chronological ages were from six to nine years (average 8 ? 9 years) compared favourably with normal pre-school children in regard to physical, social and emotional development, but were retarded in language development.
14. It is claimed that the record form has adequately served its purpose: it provides adequate data in regard to the pre-school child’s all-round development and is sufficiently practical and simple for students and teachers to complete. It would be advisable to increase the number of cases particularly at the two and five year level.
15. This research study showed the important part that parental attitudes and the atmosphere of the home play in relation to the child’s social and emotional development. The effect of poor economic circumstances was far less deleterious.
Nursery school attendances tended to affect language and social development favourably to some extent but other factors such as age and intelligence seemed more important.
The following case studies are of interest: Isobel. 3 ? 6 years.
Very superior intelligence.
Isobel had not attended the Nursery School very long, only about three months, when this record was made. She had in that short time, however, made a very satis- factory adjustment for her age. She was a very intelligent child from a very intelligent family. Her language development, her vocabulary and frequent use of words were quite unusual for her age. She was a little small, and perhaps not very daring in achieving physical feats, but extremely active.
She gained a maximum score for emotional development, very unusual at three years, and nearly a maximum score for social adjustment towards children. She was an extremely happy, lovable and easy going child, and was adored by all the small boys. She had two brothers slightly older than herself who were very attached to her. Her mother was a sensible, placid, intelligent woman, and psychologically the home was satisfactory. Isobel did, however, expect a good deal of personal attention from adults, and her profile shows her social adjustment towards adults to be inferior to that shown towards children.
This little girl’s general development was quite unusually good, and her profile is perhaps the best obtained.
Betty. 3-6 years. Average intelligence. Betty was a typically spoilt child. She was an only child. She lived in a rather small modern flat, and had a nursery to herself. Her mother adored her, spent a great deal of money on her, and dressed her in extremely pretty clothes. She certainly had a very extensive wardrobe for a three-year-old.
Betty sucked her thumb and had frequent temper tantrums. She used to bang her head on her cot at night, and wet her bed. Her mother felt quite hopeless about managing her, and alternatively bribed her and threatened her. She was a rather difficult child in school. She was active and lively but very possessive and quarrelsome. She was very sociable but could seldom remain friends with any child for long. She was usually on good terms with adults but quickly became jealous if attention was shown to other children. Emotionally she was far from being a serene, contented child. Her profile is an interesting one. It showed good language ability and social adjustment more particularly to adults than to children. She was considerably retarded in emotional development.
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