According to the Washington State Guidelines, toddlers (age ranges from 16-36 months) commonly asks for help when needed and children imitated how others would problem solve. In my observation at Dizzy Castle, Cooper (a two year old), asked for assistance many times when he was put in situations that was difficult for him to overcome, but then imitated his cousin when he showed him how to problem solve. As my focal child, Cooper, had a strong bond with his older cousin, their bond made Cooper feel safe. When Cooper struggled with the obstacles, he would ask for assistance and began to be fussy, but as soon as he sees his cousin complete the obstacle, he soon followed him to do so as well. Cooper seems to be in accordance to the Washington …show more content…
When observing Cooper, I have noticed that he feared crossing the bridges that were see-through. As his cousin asked why he did not want to cross the clear bridge, Cooper responds with “it’s scary, I no want to fall”. After a few minutes of Cooper’s cousin trying to convince him that the bridge is safe, the cousin decided to cross the bridge to prove it to him. As Cooper watches his cousin slowly cross the bridge, he puts one foot onto the bridge. Cooper knows it’s a safe bridge because his cousin crossed it already but he is still a little hesitant. Cooper then asks for help and his cousin runs back to hold his hand to assist him in crossing the see-through bridge. The further along they got in their obstacle, the more clear bridges they had to cross. As Cooper stumbled upon the next clear bridge after the one they just crossed, he decided to cross the bridge by himself by running through it, which is exactly what his cousin did. Cooper imitated his cousin and finally crossed all the clear bridges on his …show more content…
Although this was more of the age for infants, Cooper’s actions remained similar to the participants in the article by Chen. There were four experiments conducted and one of the four included ten and 13-month-olds to “attempt to solve problems that require combining 2 subgoals to bring a toy (goal object) within reach” (Chen, 1994). Chen mentioned on page 4 of the article that if the child did not solve the problem, then the parent was asked to solve it in front of the child slowly, so that the child could imitate them. As the child tried the experiment after the parent showed them how to solve it, they copied the same idea the parent showed them. This example of imitation was shown when Cooper copied his cousin by running across the bridge as he overcame his fear of the clear bridge. Another experiment shown in Chen’s article,was a bridge experiment. This was very similar to the observation with Cooper because he had a hard time crossing clear bridges but the roped bridges and solid bridges were easier for him to cross. The behaviors of the children in both the article and from Cooper showed that they were faster at crossing the bridge when they repeatedly crossed it. It was also shown in the article that slightly more than half of the infants “successfully solved each problem”