Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory/Systems
VIGNETTE 1 – SOFIA (ABOUT ATTACHMENT STYLES):
Sofia is a 9-year old girl who lives at home with her mum, dad and baby sister. Sofia was originally born in Spain and migrated to Australia with her mum and dad when she was only 2-months old. Sofia reached traditional milestones in the expected time frame. Although Sofia was never hospitalised, she often suffered from colds and viruses as a young baby which often made her mother anxious and not want to leave her.
After Sofia and her family settled in Adelaide, Sofia began family day-care at 10-months old. Sofia’s mother found it very difficult to leave Sofia at day-care, and drop-offs became traumatic for both Sofia and her mum, often resulting in the day-care workers physically removing Sofia from her mother’s body. Sofia would thrash and scream in protest of staying with the day-care workers, and her mum would cry as she walked away. When Sofia’s mother returned to pick Sofia up at the end of the day, Sofia seemed disinterested in her mother.
Shortly after Sofia turned 12-months old, her mum and dad removed her from day-care and Sofia’s dad stayed home full-time to take care of Sofia. Unfortunately, around the same time, Sofia’s dad became unwell and was often unable to get out of bed and play with Sofia. As a result, Sofia lacked adequate supervision and support from her mum and dad, as her dad continued to take the role of caregiver (although often neglecting Sofia), and her mum continued to work full time.
Sofia’s mum could see that Sofia stayed home most days, often playing by herself. Sofia’s dad felt Sofia was too demanding and should be happy enough with staying home rather than going to day-care. Sofia’s mum and dad often disagreed on how to parent Sofia with her dad often wanting her to retain her Spanish culture and her mother wanting her to learn more about Australian culture. As a result, Sofia mainly spoke Spanish and struggled to understand much English.
Sofia began preschool at the age of 3-½ years and her mother returned to the traumatic events of dropping Sofia off at her pre-school provider. It became clear to the preschool teachers that Sofia was drastically behind her peers in many domains including toileting, drawing, and most obviously, socially.
The preschool worked hard to develop a connection with Sofia. One teacher in particular greeted Sofia each day and helped Sofia walk her mother to the gate to say goodbye for the day. This same teacher offered Sofia cuddles when she was upset and aimed to always be within an arms-reach of Sofia. Sofia’s preschool class decided to learn more about Spain and often asked Sofia for the names of items in the classroom.
VIGNETTE 1 – OLLIE (ABOUT POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS):
Ollie is a 10-year old adolescent boy who lives in Adelaide with his mum, dad and brother. From very early on, Ollie’s mum knew he was not developing like his older brother Jake. Ollie learned to walk much later than Jake and still struggles with running and bike riding.
When Ollie was 6-years old, he struggled to make friends with the other children that attended his primary school. He was often bullied as the children typically laughed at him when he fell off his chair, knocked things over, and dropped nearly everything. Ollie hated going to school because of this and often found himself clinging to his mother at drop-off. His mum and dad took turns doing school drop-offs, hoping that Ollie would feel both parents were there to support and understand him.
As Ollie got older, he often found himself thinking about how to avoid physical activities at school. He found it incredibly challenging and down-right frustrating to not be able to move his body similarly to his peers. His teachers typically accused him of being lazy and informed his parents that he needed to work harder to participate in all activities.
Ollie’s teachers’ comments triggered his parents to seek advice from their general practitioner (medical doctor). Their general practitioner noted that Ollie seemed quite healthy but recommended he be tested for developmental coordination disorder. The assessing psychologist confirmed the general practitioner’s suspicions, and Ollie was diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
After Ollie received his diagnosis, his parents worked tirelessly to educate his teachers and school community. Ollie’s mum even managed to help secure a small grant to afford the school expert professional development so that the teachers could become more aware of developmental coordination disorder and how to help accommodate and include children like Ollie better in the classroom.
For each vignette, please respond to all prompts below. Your responses should be phrased in full sentences. Importantly, justify/explain your responses. Remember to include both the content (e.g., the specific factor/s in question) AND how this might affect the child’s development in your responses.
What are the potential biological factors that might have contributed to the individual’s development? (10 points)
Which parenting influences could have contributed to the individual’s development? (10 points)
Does the individual display any physical or motor development anomalies? How might they have contributed to the individual’s development? (10 points)
What social experiences was the child exposed to? How might they have influenced the individual’s development? (10 points)
What is the individual’s attachment style? How might their attachment style contribute to their development? (10 points)
Give an overall analysis of how the individual’s development relates to each subsystem of Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological framework. (500 words max; 50 points)
Remember, to answer prompt 6 you should move beyond summarising your responses to prompts 1-5 and cite relevant information to justify/explain your response. Word limit per vignette is 1,000 words (as a rough gauge, ~100 words for prompts 1-5 and ~500 words for prompt 6).
