Needs of the School-Aged Children
The needs of the school-age children can be categorized into; intellectual needs, social needs, emotional needs and physical needs. Examples of physical needs are clothing, food, shelter, sleep, physical activities, physical space and exercise. An example of an intellectual need is literacy, discipline and guidance. School going children belonging to the given age bracket should get love and attention from the relevant people. The love and affection are examples of emotional needs. When conducting the physical assessment of the specific age bracket, the age and the development stage of the child should be considered, unlike other age groups. The health care attendant should use a communication style that favours the needs of the child, unlike when assessing other age groups. Lastly, the health care attendant should be able to accommodate the behaviour of the child. This is important in this age bracket as it ensures that the child is comfortable during the treatment process. There are four assessment techniques which include; palpation, inspection, percussion and auscultation. These four techniques can be modified to match different stages of children by applying the approaches to the physical assessment of children of different ages.
The child identified is seven years old. There are several developmental stages that are expected of a seven-year-old child. Firstly, there is motor development. Children of this age have the right balance, the coordination of hands and eyes are well developed, and they can perform gymnastics movements which are simple, for instance, somersaults. Secondly, the language and thinking of children of seven years old are developed. They use vocabularies, they are able to understand the reason and make decisions, they can tell time and seasons, and their learning styles can be identified. The third developmental stage of seven-year-old children is emotional and social development. Children of this age have the desire to be perfect, may have low self-esteem, they complain more, they tend to differentiate right from the wrong, gets the guilty feeling and takes directions and instructions thoroughly. These three stages are the key development stages that are expected from children at the age of seven.
Development assessment refers to assessing the performance of the child compared to the performance of other children of the same age. According to Piaget, a child can be developmentally assessed by comparing the physical performance of the child with the other children from the same group. As much as the performance of children varies from a child to the other, there are some performances that should be common among the children of that age. Therefore, the comparison is the best way of developmentally assessing a child. When carrying out the assessment, it is important for the healthcare attendant to be friendly to the child. When asking questions, the attendant should ensure that she is social enough. That will make the child comfortable during the process, and once the child is comfortable, he/ she is likely, to tell the truth. Therefore, the most critical strategy to ensure the maximum corporation is social enough to make the child comfortable.