Observation Five

Observation #5:

Notes on a 9-year old female and her interactions with me, a rabbit and horses.

Background Context: October 16^th 2015 Time from 5:30 til 6:15 pm

ZR is a nine year old girl diagnosed with a behavioral disorder as well as a hormone imbalance. She finds listening to be somewhat difficult at times, and often can become overwhelmed in social situations. She and I were at the horse barn with three horses: feeding them, grooming them, treating one for a cut and then leading them on a walk.

Detailed Observation: I began this observation when we pulled into the driveway of the horse barn. ZR becomes more active, talkative and (she seems excited) to be here at the barn. The horses are nickering to us, and ZR says that, “they are hungry”. She runs into the horse barn to see the bunny, who she calls, “Bun-Bun”. She points out that the bunny needs some food and water, and together we scoop out bunny grain out of a bucket where she notices that the bunny grain’s label says “Lily” on it. She asks why we are feeding Lily’s (the white horse) grain to the rabbit. I explain to her that it was Lily’s old bucket and now that we have a mice problem in the barn that we have to seal all food containers and we put the bunny’s food in it. She understands now and takes the bunny out of her cage, stroking her and murmuring to the bunny, “it’s ok, Bun-Bun, you’ll be ok”. She carries the bunny as we head out to the horse paddock (continuing to talk softly to her). ZR puts the bunny in her outdoor pen as we go into the horse field to catch the horse. ZR asks if she can lead Lily, a big white horse, and then has some struggles clipping the halter on to her head, so I assist her with this. As we open the gate, another horse, a bay, runs out of the paddock and ZR laughs and laughs, crying “Little One!! Uh Oh, Little One!” (the name of the horse). ZR says, “Delaney you have to catch her!” She continues to laugh and I catch the horse and put her back. ZR then leads Lily to the barn to treat her wound. ZR talks softly to Lily as she leads her back, “good girl Lily” and pats her gently. As we get to the barn, I hand ZR Lily’s food dish and she remarks that Lily is “smiling” and looks like she is trying to “sit down”. (the barn has some stairs that lead up to where the food is kept. As we get her grain ready, Lily gets excited and tries to reach for the buckets) I look over and sure enough the mare appears that she is sitting from reaching for the food. ZR also says that Lily is picking up buckets with her lips and laughs about this too. After we give Lily her food, ZR notices that she stops almost “sitting” and now returns to her stroking and talking to Lily. She remembers the rabbit and runs down the steps to go fetch her. She brings the rabbit back into the barn, so that she is positioned like a baby in her arms and pets her and speaks to her too soft for me to understand. She places the bunny back in her cage and closes up the door. By this time, I am cleaning Lily’s wound on her neck, and ZR comes over to help me. She sits on the steps and hands me cotton balls and medicine when I ask for it. She holds up the bucket for Lily to eat and Lily takes it with her lips and throws the grain on the ground. ZR laughs and then helps to clean it up. Once we are done, ZR helps to put Lily’s blanket back on, remarking that, “of course it is red, ALL of Lily’s things are red”. She continues to talk about the red for a while, noting horse vocabulary like, “leg wraps”, “saddle pads” and “halters”. She tells me that her horse likes purple and Lily likes red and that her mom’s horse likes hunter green. On the return trip to the paddock, I lead Lily while ZR carries the other two horses’ grain buckets. I let Lily back in to the horse paddock as ZR delivers the grain to the other horses. They are running after her very fast and trying to take bites from the buckets. ZR is laughing and yelling at them to get away, calling them by name. At first she accidently mixed-up their names but after realizing this began to call their names correctly. She dumps the grain into their feed pans and immediately is swarmed by the horses. She carries the other bucket and dumps that grain into the pan but the other horse knocks it so that most of the food ends up on the ground. ZR laughs and says, “Brandy! Look what you did!” She carries the empty buckets out of the horse paddock, says good bye to them and again comments on Lily’s red blanket, saying “Delaney you love red! You really love red!”

Statements on Development:

®    Very talkative, not always understandable. Typical for a 9-year old.

®    Early onset puberty, due to excessive hormone levels: this is very atypical. She is undergoing a surgery to help slow down her hormones & to help the body to regulate them more.

®    Highly observant, notices and comments on anything new or exciting. This is typical nine year old behavior.

®    Good with animals. Likes to give them attention and nurturing. Seems happy when she is with animals of all kinds (dogs, too). Fairly typical behavior, but varies child to child.

®    Gets stuck on ONE thing: today it was the “red” factor. Because of her behavioral and mental capacities, she tends to think about and only think about one thing. Can be typical, but her case is a bit extreme.

®    On a more personal level, this particular day, ZR acted very mildly and neutral (very much like an average 9 year old: helping out with chores, talking, observing and playing) Other days she reacts very differently than a typical 9 year old (temper tantrums, ignoring instruction, helplessness and misbehaving) due to her behavior and mental disorders.

Professional Reflection:

I chose the narrative method of observation (I also incorporated the running record style as well) because I was involved with the child in addition to observing her. I felt that it was important to be talking in first person while writing my narrative because I was directly interacting with ZR. A professional in this field may choose to use this method or an anecdotal record to collapse or condense the observation I took (perhaps taking out my more personal level of connection with the child). A behaviorist especially, may want to use my notes to further her research on ZR to discover what her interests are, why she behaves the way she does, and further gather information.