Developmental Delays and School Readiness

           Rarely do we speak about developmental delays or how age and not just ability determines a student’s readiness for learning. Combine this with mandated tests, state standards and uncertain home support and teachers often are faced with the perfect storm
For example, Dr. Deanna Kuhn of Columbia University, tested K-12 students and found that in most classrooms there are usually two and three developmental learning levels or the thought processes about how students’ learn and acquire information. Furthermore, she found that 65% to 70% of high school seniors never reach formal operational or abstract thinking, generally considered the highest level of cognitive development.
           Formal operational thinking begins to kick in as early as age 11, when children are expected to entertain three plus operations at a time (long division) and full formal about age 14 (algebra).
In my opinion, not addressing developmental delays associated with learning is a little like expecting all four years olds to ride two wheelers, or expecting all 9 and 10 year olds to do long division, which requires knowledge of 1-12 math facts and four division operations.
           Moreover, teachers understand and struggle with developmental delays all the time using various remediation techniques to deal with different student developmental levels. However, one key to addressing this issue could begin at home with parents who need to understand how developmental delays can affect their child’s ability to learn.
           For example, a first grader’s homework assignment is to read one story. Parent and child read one story, but they have 15 minutes left before bedtime. The parent suggests they read another story, but the child refuses because “teacher said to read only one story!” The mother might view the child’s response as disobedient, even lazy, but in reality the child is only responding at a developmental level, or how many seven year olds think, which is the ability to entertain (only) one perspective at a time or in this case the teacher. In less than a year the same child will be more mature, or have the capacity to entertain two ideas at one time, such as teacher and parent. In the future when the mother suggests they read another story the child understands and agrees. The end result is a positive learning experience or something parent and child can build upon for future learning situations.
           The second area is remediation, or how do we raise children’s developmental learning levels so they can keep up with classroom lessons.
           In previous articles, I presented the example of fifth graders who were asked to classify five animals (bat, lion, hawk, cow, robin) into groups. The majority of the fifth graders classified the animals concretely or walking and flying or four legs and two legs. However, there were a small segment of students who reasoned at formal operational thinking and recognized that bats are mammals and not birds, or that bats are a species, mammals that also fly. When the teacher tested the same class, a small percentage still grouped the animals concretely or walking and flying. The teacher solved this problem by bringing in a live bat so the children could make a personal learning connection. The next time the kids were tested, all students successfully grouped the animals according to species.
           Teachers almost always use many strategies to remediate developmental delays, which in this case was to have the class visually experience a live bat!
           The moral of our story is that developmental delays or age plays a major factor in the expression of children’s learning and intelligence. To prove my point, visit any kindergarten classroom and check out the writing and artwork on the walls. Case closed.