Essay on Rodriguez Assessment

The adequate assessment of needs of a person and his/her level of cognitive development can help to elaborate effective approaches to the resolution of problems the person may have. In this regard, the scenario focuses on the boy of 9 years old, who suffers from his inferiority and has poor academic success, while the improvement of his academic performance seems to be the main way out of his problems.

The case involves a child, male of 9 years old, who used to be successful at school but currently is facing academic problems. The boy basically matches his level of cognitive development but the poor academic performance makes him anxious and feeling his inferiority because he cannot be as successful as his peers. The academic performance is very important for the boy at the moment.

The child suffers because he believes to be inferior compared to his peers as his academic success are lower compared to the average in the classroom. He cannot receive good grades, although he does his best. He learns hard but his efforts lead to poor outcomes.

However, the boy used to be successful before. His problems started about a month ago, when he missed the school for three weeks because of a serious illness. At the moment, he still has to undergo the rehabilitation and misses some classes. In such a situation, the boy has difficulties with catching up with his peers and feels being an outsider. The boy cannot outside what is wrong and why his performance has declined. Hence, his psychological condition deteriorates.

At this point, it is possible to refer to Erickson psychological theory, which defines the level of the cognitive development of the boy of 9 years old as a school age. Erickson argued that school is one of the most important events in the life of children at the age of 6 to 11 (Allen & Marotz, 2003). The school age is characterized by the growing need of children to meet new social and academic demands. They have high expectations from school and their new social environment, i.e. their peers (Bee & Boyd, 2009). They naturally want to achieve the recognition of their academic performance by their peers and the competition between children is very high at this stage of their cognitive development.

Therefore, it is quite natural that the boy of 9 years old pays so much attention to his academic performance. He wants to reach the academic success to maintain his competence. The competence is crucial for children at this age (Slater, 2003). Consequently, the boy just wants to reach the academic success to feel good and competitive compared to his peers. He wants to be just like them and he wants to improve his academic performance.

However, as the boy suffers from academic problems he develops a sense of inferiority. The root of his current problems lie in the time he missed and failed to attend the school. Problems with his physical health influenced his academic performance and now the boy needs not only physical but also psychological rehabilitation. In this regard, the improvement of his academic performance should be one of the primary goals for the boy to achieve.