Why is it important to learn the difference between the developmental and chronological age when working with autistic children? Which one is more important to know and use to help them make the most gains?
It’s common in autistic children to be developmentally behind their peers.
Considering that it’s a developmental disorder and one of the major red flags is that the child doesn’t hit their developmental milestones on time. It’s not a shocker to see an autistic child be 5 years old chronologically but have the mentality of a 2 year old.
When we took Logan out of public school at the end of 2nd grade, he was 8 years old chronologically. Socially and developmentally he was around 3 – 4 years old. This was important to know for many reasons.
The developmental age of your child is where he can work and socialize with success 80% of the time. That is where you want to work at in every interaction with your autistic child. That’s the age of the kids he should play with, the age level of the curriculum you should be teaching, and the age level you refer to when you need to discipline your child.
Everything in Autismland revolved around knowing this level. Chronological age is the physical age of your child’s body. Nothing more, nothing less.
Logan used to hate to lose in games and competitions. As in, he would have a complete meltdown and come unglued. It was a trait that we had to work on quite religiously for quite a while. No one wants to play with a kid that throws a fit when he loses.
In order to make him successful at overcoming this deficiency, we had to work at his developmental level not his chronological age. For Logan this meant that although he was chronologically 11 years, he was more on the level of a 6 – 8 year old.
This took me a long time to learn and was oh so hard to accept. It was excruciating to go with what is in his zone of proximal development rather than what other almost 11 year old children were doing. I cried and prayed many a night for the wisdom to know what is best for Logan and the strength to do it.
Knowing what is best and having the strength to do what is best for your autistic child are two entirely different things.
It’s painful to see that your child is behind his peers. You have to swallow the pain to do what is best for your child. Ignoring it just sets him up for failure.
First, I needed to tailor his homeschool curriculum to his needs.
While he was advanced in math and reading, he was severely behind in writing. He could barely write his name at this point. Remembering the 5 year developmental age made it easier for me to look at his lessons to see if he was making adequate progress.
It also reminded me that he needed short, fun lessons just like any other kindergartener even though chronologically he was in 2nd almost 3rd grade. I expected the same work out of him that I expected out of any other kindergartener.
Second, this made socialization easy to set up.
With that in mind, along with the grace of God, I made a few decisions that proved to be phenomenal for Logan.
First, he stayed in the 3rd & 4th grade Sunday School class when it came time to move up to the next class. He could not hang with 5th graders not to mention that he was not going to be ready for the youth group in a year like the others in that group.
The class was smaller and some of the more boisterous boys had moved on thankfully. The sad part was that some of the girls that had helped him in the past like, Brooke and Emma, moved on to the older class as well. They could not have helped him anymore anyway as they are split up into gender specific classes from 5th grade & up.
The super awesome part was that Logan stayed in the same class as Thomas. They are 2 peas in a pod. They have similar interests, are homeschooled, and both are quiet and laid back. With Thomas, I didn’t have to worry about whether Logan was being bullied or if the other kid was being mean to him.
Sadly this is not always the case everywhere even at church. The teachers were amazing to not only allow Logan to stay there but to work with him at his level.
It made him feel more competent in dealing with other children since he could relate to the younger kids.
In children’s church, Logan was always paired with a certain person. When I asked why, I was informed that Logan hates to lose.
Hello? I know that. What does that have to do with this person? Apparently, Logan was ok to lose to her. He doesn’t come unglued or have a meltdown with her. He still loses every time to her. Every single time.
The better solution would have been to pair Logan up with a younger child where he had a chance at winning. A different game or more supports in place to help him navigate the game would have preferred. This was a case where working at his developmental age instead of his chronological age would have solved the problem instantly.
Other children often see our special needs children as no different from them. They don’t care about chronological age. They just want to play. The best thing you can do for your autistic child is to forget his age. Focus on his developmental level.
Help him to fill in the gaps where needed so he can move on to the higher order thinking that is necessary for him to be successful for the rest of his life. I won’t lie. It’s mentally tough to do it. The rewards will far outweigh the pain, I promise.
