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PSY 121: Developmental Psychology Learning Unit 4: Assignment
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Ruby: A Case Study
SLO: Analyze biological, cognitive, and socioemotional developmental processes for infancy, apply
developmental psychological content to real-life situations to include individual differences, beliefs,
values, and interpersonal relationships, and develop critical thinking skills.
Read the following case study. Write a 1-2-page document outlining the problems you predict in
Ruby’s future socioemotional development and interventions for each focusing on Ruby’s
1. temperament, 2. goodness of fit, 3. trust, 4. sense of self, 5. social orientation, 6.
attachment, 7. parental influence, 8. now, you are the parent-what changes would you
personally make to provide the best life for Ruby? Use your textbook only as your resource.
Ruby
Ruby is a cute 20-month-old toddler – with blond hair and the most beautiful blue eyes. She has a
slow-to-warm up temperament. She weighs 29 pounds and is 33 inches tall. She loves the color
red and always has her red blanket with her. She has a red teddy bear and her dolly, in a red dress
that she plays with while at home. Her mother describes her as stubborn and anxious.
Her mother, Lori Ann, sleeps most of the day. She is on a number of different anti-depressants and
anti-anxiety medications. Lori Ann has had problems with depression for most of her adult life.
Her depression seems to have gotten worse since Ruby was born. Ruby learned to sit on her own
at 9 months and started to walk just in the last month. Ruby loves to see herself in a mirror. Lori
Ann finds it hard to keep up with Ruby and often leaves her in her at daycare from it’s opening to
closing. Many times, Ruby is brought to daycare dirty, her hair unkept and in the same closes as
the day before and with no shoes.
Lori Ann sometimes wonders if her daughter is deaf. Ruby does not respond to her own name
when she yells – except to cry. Ruby does not seem to notice her mother’s moodiness. She spends
hours watching the dust sparkle in the sunlight and in talking to and playing with her teddy bear
and dolly.
Ruby likes going to the day care center. She is more upset that she is not allowed to bring her dolly
or teddy bear – than she is when her mother leaves. She is not happy when Lori Ann comes back
to pick her up and takes her home. Ruby is excited to see the other children at the day care center.
She spends her time watching other children play and interact, watching Sesames Street on the
television, playing with the toys, and her favorite is lining blocks in a straight line along a crack in
the tile floor.
Ruby’s father spends little to no time with her – he is a truck driver and is home every weekend,
which he sleeps. Lori Ann has few friends and those friends do not have children. If she makes
friends, she will try to drop off-dump Ruby on them. Grandma lives 2 hours from the family
PSY 121: Developmental Psychology Learning Unit 4: Assignment
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otherwise, there are no relatives close by. Lori Ann only leaves the house to drop off Ruby and
pick her up, to doctor appointments, or the grocery store.
Submit to the appropriate location in the unit.
© Deb Vos and Indian Hills Community College
