MY VIRTUAL CHILD

CAIDEN APOLLO AT 19 MONTHS OLD

Caiden Apollo is able to imitate actions or words that he has seen or heard days before. This greatly expands his ability to learn new things. Caiden Apollo also seems to be aware of basic categories, such as big or little, and blue or red. You can tell because of the way he is sorting his toys.

1. Caiden Apollo has been cared for in a home daycare setting since 3 months of age, but the caregiver doesn't care for children over 18 months of age, so a change must be made. You discuss how things are going with Caiden Apollo and your future goals with your partner. You decide

That you will work part-time outside the home, and Caiden Apollo will be cared for at those times by a high quality home daycare provider. She cares for children between 18 and 36 months of age. You or your partner will pick up Caiden Apollo as early as possible in the day, depending on work and commuting schedules.

• We chose this because it will be good for Caiden and for us if one of us is working even if its part time. We will just make sure that the daycare provider will really take good care of our child and we will set some schedules to pick him up.  

The preschool that you are considering for Caiden Apollo offers low-priced developmental assessments. Caiden Apollo is able to enroll when he becomes reasonably well potty-trained. He is 19 months old now. Just to find out how Caiden Apollo's development compares to other children of his age at this point, you have an assessment done. The early childhood specialist observes Caiden Apollo in free play with other kids and does a little testing of cognitive skills. She reports the following: 

• Overall, Caiden Apollo appeared to be fairly aggressive with the other children. The examiner recommended setting firmer guidelines for behavior at home, giving Caiden Apollo practice at expressing his needs, and using time-out plus explanations for acts of aggression. She also recommended more supervised experience in toddler playgroups or daycare.

• The specialist thought that Caiden Apollo was securely attached, but that the communication system between parent and child could be improved. She recommended that both parents try to read Caiden Apollo's reactions more carefully and work on interpersonal communication.

• Caiden Apollo was shy with the examiner, who thought he was nervous around new adults or just didn't know what to do. She recommended that Caiden Apollo stay with one primary preschool or daycare provider during the day and get to know other new adults slowly.

• Caiden Apollo was generally in a positive mood during the play sessions, but occasionally could be irritable or impatient when things did not go his way.

• Caiden Apollo scored at about the 18-19 month range for communication skill, language comprehension and language production. This is age-appropriate of course, but the examiner recommended that because Caiden Apollo was in such an important period of language development, that you spend as much time as possible talking with Caiden Apollo, asking questions that require some kind of extended answer (rather than just "yes" or "no"), and looking at and naming things in picture books, etc.

• Caiden Apollo was below age-norms on tasks such as building a block tower to model one made by the examiner and other spatial skills such as copying shapes, coloring within the lines and solving picture puzzles. The examiner said that if Caiden Apollo was interested, you could work on these kinds of activities more, but not to push them. In that case, just making the materials available as an option would be a good idea.

• Caiden Apollo was about average for gross motor development. The examiner recommended that you give him plenty of opportunities to play on indoor and outdoor play gyms and to play games of catch and kickball with you.

• The examiner commented that Caiden Apollo was able to concentrate on activities for 10-15 minutes, which was age-appropriate. Caiden Apollo was coming along fine, but she still recommended trying to engage Caiden Apollo's attention in something really interesting for longer and longer periods of time, to gradually build up his tolerance for preschool-type activities. She also recommended getting Caiden Apollo to follow simple directions at home, gradually increasing the complexity and length of the directions.

Mary Laurenz J. Barbaton, Ryan Audrey Cordova, Edel Rose Rivera

BSPT-2C