By: Arthur Hall
Submitted: 2010-05-18 13:58:34 | Word Count: 543
It was in the morning that I observed the response of my child to various stimuli that I presented. The child is a female aged twelve months. The preferred location for carrying out the observation was inside the living room of my house as it was quiet with no distraction and it had the right temperature that made the child comfortable. Since it was in the morning, the child was not tired as it was just a short time after waking up. The various stimuli that the child was supposed to respond to were a set of keys, cotton ball soaked with strong scent of vanilla, a piece of sand paper, a piece of felt fabric, a stuffed animal (doll) 4-6 inches high and a medium to large ball.
Objective details of observation
I sat down on the floor in front of where the child was sitting and presented one stimuli at a time to the child while closely observing the response of the child. First, I shook the key behind the child without allowing her to see them. The child turned around, looked at the keys, picked them up and started playing with them while showing them to me. I took the keys and shook them in front where she could see and reach for them. She smiled, took the keys out of my hand, showed them to me, started shaking them and was reluctant to give them back to me.
The third stimuli was the cotton ball socked in strong scent of vanilla in a container which I removed from the container and passed it under the baby’s nose and then placed it in front of the baby. She picked the cotton ball from the floor, rubbed it on her face, immediately dropped it and ran off.
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I then placed the sandpaper and felt fabric in front of the child. First, she picked the felt fabric and rubbed it while smiling. Then she picked sandpaper with the left hand while still holding the felt with right hand, rubbed the sandpaper on the ground and then let it go. She then rubbed the felt on her face and started walking with it around and never picked the sandpaper again.
I stroke the child gently on the arms, then on the legs and finally on the torso. She stood there without reacting as I stroked her but smiled when I finally stopped.
Within the reach of the child, I placed the stuffed animal (doll). She grabbed the doll, talked to it and then carried it around showing it to me while smiling. After about ten minutes, she eventually let it down.
The last stimulus was to roll the ball slowly towards the infant several times. She laughed and started pushing the ball, picked it and carried it around each time it was rolled, and would always bring it back to me to roll it again.
Subjective details of the observation
The child responded differently to the stimuli depending on what impressed her. One notable aspect is sensory reflexes that the child exhibited. When the keys were shook behind the child, hearing sensory was in play and then the sight of the keys activated the visual reflexes. This was also exhibited in all the other visual stimuli.
