Child H is an 8-month old male observed in a preschool classroom. During the observation, Child H displayed developing fine and gross motor skills like grasping toys, cruising, and bouncing. Child H enjoys exploring toys through sensory contact and repeating enjoyable actions. Child H engages in social behaviors like responding positively to teacher acknowledgment and reinforcement. The classroom environment supports the children's physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development through toys, teacher interactions, and trust building.

1. Running head: LAB THEORY 2
Lab Theory # 2
Caitlyn Wilson
University of Georgia

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Lab Theory 2
Interpretation
Child H appears to enjoy playing alone as he plays away from the other children. They
may be shy and social skills are still developing. Child H is in their sensorimotor development
phase meaning Child H does a lot of their learning through exploration and direct sensory
contact (Leigh, 2019). Child H uses their fine motor movements and pincer grasp by grabbing
the toy out of the sink with their fingers and hand. Child H is in Piaget’s substage 4 of
sensorimotor development as they like to repeat pleasurable actions such as the bouncing they do
over and over or the smacking of their hands. Child H uses a technique called “cruising” by
doing hand over hand movement and stepping towards the teacher (Leigh, 2019, slide 5). They
show a good amount of attachment to their teacher as Child H seems to rely on positive
reinforcement from her when they fall and frowns when she does not acknowledge them.
Physical Development
In the classroom I observed several toys and equipment that the children interacted with.
The play kitchen was used by Child H as a tool to work on their standing and walking skills.
Other children also used bouncers that helped them with their naptime. There was other differing
height, soft blocks that were used for climbing and working on walking/standing. Among the
floor were small toys that the children were able to use to work on fine motor skills like different
types of grasping and lifting.
I observed both fine and gross motor skills in the classroom. Children at the table eating
displayed fine motor skills by picking up the crackers with their pincer grasp and taking the

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cracker to their mouth. I also observed children standing and holding on to counters while
stepping, an example of gross motor skills.
Cognitive Development
Motor skills help with children’s cognitive development because when in the stage of
sensorimotor, they depend heavily on exploration to learn. And having good motor skills allows
a child to be able to move to explore their environment and improves cognitive development. An
example of this could be children playing peek-a-boo. This helps teach object permanence,
which is achieved when a child understands that even when they cannot see it, it still exists.
(Leigh, 2019). Another example is when a child is crawling and a toy is in the way, being able to
use fine motor skills to pick the toy up and move the toy to the side teaches cognitive problem-
solving skills.
Habituation is a learning process that decreases the reaction to a stimulus after being
repeatedly exposed to it. In the classroom, an example of this could be the sound of the bouncers.
With two going at once, the bouncing sound is quite audible. When the teacher first begins to
bounce the babies, other children look over at the sound as a reaction. But after hearing the noise
over and over and even after the teacher pauses for a moment to grab something from the shelf
and returns to bounce the babies, the children in the classroom do not react as much, if at all, the
more frequently they hear the bouncing.
Infants have a lot of catching up to do with adults in terms of learning. They are faced
with new information every day and this is where categorization comes in. Categorization is
infants being able to categorize things by shape, size, etc. to better learn things faster and easier.
An example of this in the classroom is how the babies categorize adults from the other children.

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By the child learning that adults are the ones that pick them up and feed them, they learn that
adults take care of them. They can categorize this by the size difference between adults and other
babies. In the classroom children react to adults by smiling and laughing more with the teachers
they are comfortable with than the other babies.
Infant Directed Speech is a special high-pitched, short phrased, and exaggerated
expressions that people use to speak to babies (Leigh, 2019, slide 11). Babies react more
positively to this type of communication and it helps babies tune in to the sounds of their native
language. An example of this from my observation is when the teacher sitting in the blue chair
looks over her shoulder and says in a high-pitched voice “Oh hi there, Child H”. The child
realized she was acknowledging them, and this made the child smile.
Socioemotional Development
The children in this classroom are in the Trust vs. Mistrust phase of Erikson’s
Psychosocial development. In this phase, infants learn to trust their caregivers (teachers),
otherwise negative development effects may occur such as anxiety. An example of this is when
two children began to cry, and the teacher immediately went to tend to them by putting them
both in bouncers on the floor and began to bounce them to sleep. Another example of trust vs
mistrust is when the children got hungry, they trusted that their teachers would feed them. In the
classroom they not only fed the children crackers but also fed one child from a jar and another
from a bottle. These children being able to trust that their teachers will come to them when they
cry and feed them when they are hungry has led to feelings of safety for the children when they
are away from their parents at daycare.

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Socioemotional development is important for building relationships and trust with people
and cognitive development can go hand in hand with this sometimes. Infants do a lot of cognitive
exploration learning and playing. Since they are in the Trust vs Mistrust phase as well, this helps
with being able to trust the adults around them because they are able to explore and learn their
environment around them more. Another example of this could be language development. The
developing of a child’s language skills allows them to effectively communicate with their parents
and teachers so they can communicate their needs more and they will trust their caregivers more.
An example of this could be a child slapping the table and whining and putting things in their
mouth. Even though they cannot speak the same language yet, they are able to show signs that
they are hungry to their caregivers.
Running Notes:
Date: 9/24/19 Time: 12:05 Time end: 12:45
Child Initial: H Child age: 8 months Child sex: Male
Time Running Record Interpretation
12:05 Child H has both hands on the counter of the
play kitchen. Child H bounces up and down
using their knees and hips. They lift one hand
and reaches it into the sink of the play kitchen
and grabs a small toy. He hits the toy on the
Child H is displaying his fine
motor movements and
pincer grasps by picking up
the toy. These skills are still
developing because they
seem to get frustrated when

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counter a few times before dropping it and
looking down at it and frowning.
they drop the toy. Child H is
beginning to be in the stages
of pulling themselves up and
preparing to walk.
12:06 Child H turns over their shoulder and puts one
hand on the teacher’s blue chair on the ground.
One at a time they move over to have both
hands on the chair. Child H begins to bounce
again and make sounds.
Child H is showing their
gross motor movements and
“cruising” by doing hand
over hand type walking.
Child H seems to be moving
into substage 4 of Piagets
sensorimotor development
because they repeat
movements over and over
again that they find
pleasurable.
12:07 Child H raises one arm and brings it to the
teachers shoulder and frowns. Child H brings
their hand down again and the teacher looks
over her shoulder and smiles at Child H and says
“Oh hi there, Child H”. Child H smiles and
laughs.
Child H seems to not like to
be ignored because they
frown the first time when
the teacher does not notice
Child H. Child H probably
smiled because they enjoyed
the positive feedback they

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got from the teacher when
they touched her shoulder.
12:08 Child H looks over their shoulder and falls on
their bottom. Child H’s eyes widen and looks
over to his teacher. The teacher says “oopsies”
and Child H smiles then rolls over to their knees
and scoots over across the floor.
Child H appears to need bits
of reinforcement. When
Child H falls, they look
towards the teacher and
wait for the teacher to
respond “oopsies” before
continuing.
12:09 Child H continues to crawl across the floor
pausing momentarily to look at the teacher
bouncing the other children. Child H then crawls
behind the teacher until Child H gets to a toy
and they grab the toy and rolls to their bottom.
Child H places the toy in their mouth with their
right hand and swings their left hand up and
down.
Child H could be showing his
movement into substage 4
because they crawl and sees
the object they want and
grabs the toy once they get
to it. Child H appears to be
exploring their environment
by not only their eyes but
also their mouth by putting
the toy in their mouth.
12:10 Child H drops the toy and begins to crawl back
towards the teacher. Child H crawls until they
are slightly under the other children’s bouncer.
Child H appears to want the
attention the teacher is
giving the other two children

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Child H reaches up to the bouncer and the
bouncer bumps their head three times. Child H
begins to whine.
in the bouncers and reaches
to pull up on the bouncers
but does not successfully do
so. Child H appears to grow
frustrated by being bumped
in the head because they
cry.
12:11 Another teacher walks over to Child H and picks
Child H up and sets them at a table with three
other children. Child H pats the table over and
over and looks over at the other children eating.
The teacher places piles of crackers in front of
the other children and pauses before setting
any in front of Child H. Child H begins to cry and
slap the table with both of their hands.
Child H appears to begin
working on his social skills
and verbal skills as he looks
around his classmates and
coos. Child H appears to be
frustrated that the other
children are eating, and they
are not.
12:12 The teacher sits behind Child H and grabs a jar
of baby food and begins to feed Child H with a
spoon. Child H opens and closes their mouth
very fast and some food falls on their chin. Child
H lifts their hands and smack them down on the
table over and over again.
Child H is displaying parts of
substage 3 because of their
interest in sounds he is
making himself by slapping
the table. Child H’s eating
and swallowing skills may be
developing slower than their

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classmates because of their
food restricted to puree
while the classmates eat
crackers.
12:13 Child H reaches for the teachers left hand and
they clap hands together. Child H jerks their
head to the left and smiles at the teacher. Child
H begins to kick their feet up under the table.
Child H shows off their hand
eye coordination by
clapping. And enjoys the
attention and positive
feedback from the teacher
so they smile.
12:14 When the teacher brings another spoonful to
Child H’s mouth, they push her hand away with
their right hand and begins to cry again. Child H
picks up the glass jar and sticks their hand in it
and taps it on the table before the teacher
grabs it and says, “that’s not yours to play
with”. They cry some more as the teacher
pauses from feeding them. Child H swings their
arms and wails and the teacher says, “you have
to eat the food that is in your mouth first”.
Child H is using the Ulnar
grasp by grabbing the jar
against his palm. Child H
shows an interest in the
noise that the jar hitting the
table makes and continues
tapping it. Child H shows
their frustration by using
their full range of motion
and swinging their arms
around.

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References:
Leigh, K. (2019). Cognitive Development 1 [PowerPoint Presentation] Retrieved from
https://uga.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/1834117/viewContent/27716601/View
Leigh, K. (2019). Physical Development 1 [PowerPoint Presentation] Retrieved from
https://uga.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/1834117/viewContent/27711516/View
Leigh, K. (2019). Physical Development 2 [PowerPoint Presentation] Retrieved from
https://uga.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/1834117/viewContent/27711516/View