Month: November 2020

Maturational delay is a fairly common developmental disorder that often affects children early in life. Basically, it consists of a delay in the normal course of development that affects several areas, from thinking, language and communication to motor skills or even growth. In this way, the child with a maturational delay has a chronologically lower development than that corresponding to his age, which makes him behave like a younger child.

In most cases, the maturational delay begins to be noticed from the first years, although sometimes it usually goes unnoticed until around two or three years, when the parents realize that their child is not capable of doing the same things than his contemporaries.

 Signs That Alert The Presence Of A Maturational Delay In The First Year Of Life

• He begins to crawl after 12 months or even later, when most children his age are already learning to walk.
• It takes a year or more for them to start babbling their first words.
• Does not show interest in showing or teaching toys and things that interest him.
• He is unable to react when called by name or shown objects that should pique his interest.
• He does not recognize familiar sounds such as his parent’s voice, the doorbell, or the barking of the house dog.
• It cannot imitate actions, sounds, or rhythms, even if they are very simple.
• He is oblivious and uninterested in toys and games.

Signs That Alert The Presence Of A Maturational Delay From The Second Year Of Life

• When the other children are already walking, he is just beginning to take his first steps.
• He is unable to integrate with other children his age to play.
• Does not recognize drawings, objects, or photos of nearby people.
• He does not show interest in imaginary games since his imagination is at a very incipient level.
• He is unable to follow the thread of a long conversation or a children’s story because he quickly loses concentration.
• You cannot follow simple rules or orders that involve more than one execution.
• He is unable to answer questions that are too elaborate since he usually has a very small vocabulary
• You don’t often express your emotions or your physical condition in words, so it’s hard to know how you feel.
• You cannot focus on a specific activity for more than 10 minutes.
• His games do not have a symbolic character since he is unable to abstract himself from the concrete form or function of an object or toy.

How Do Children With Maturational Delay Develop?

In a general sense, most children with a maturational delay tend to progress and achieve normal development for their age, as long as they receive adequate stimulation. In fact, in almost all cases the maturational delay is temporary, since it only lasts during the first 3 or 4 years of the child.

However, when it is not treated, the maturational delay can be accentuated and remain throughout childhood, and even during adolescence and youth. In these cases, the school also plays a fundamental role since if the child is labeled as a child with a school delay, it is likely that, far from overcoming the alteration, the symptoms will be accentuated.

In many families, children can insist on being the center of attention and securing their position with behavior designed to attract the attention of parents over and over again. The child who sees how his parents pay attention to him when he behaves badly thanks to negative reinforcement, will behave again because he will have learned that in that way his parents pay attention to him, even if it is not how he really would like it.

When negative reinforcement occurs, a child will use threats, disappointments, fights, yelling, or tantrums to make parents realize that they need to be understood. This ‘bad behavior’ can be triggered by the most trivial. If you think your child is misbehaving, have you ever stopped to find out what exactly is wrong?

Your Son Doesn’t Want To Be Difficult

Your child does not want to be a difficult child. He does NOT want to anger you … he has only learned to build this type of inappropriate communication. He wants to be happy and for everyone to be happy with him also in the family. But when a child’s emotional center is activated, a strong alarm signal is sent to the brain because at that moment, the little one feels that he is afraid, that he is alone and that he needs help to be able to calm down again.

A child who is not able to relax without directly drawing your attention is because he is stuck in ‘danger mode’ and does not know how to get out of it. You have likely learned this for a long time. It is difficult to understand and satisfy human emotional needs … People have been trained to see intense emotions as a sign that things are not going well. Many parents believe that they should immediately calm their children as soon as they flare up, without needing to understand what is behind these overflowing emotions. But if a child stops crying without understanding his emotions and without the adult making an attempt to understand him … it will leave a feeling of emotional disturbance within the child.

Understand What Is Happening Behind The Behavior

Ignoring a tantrum and pretending it doesn’t exist is not the solution at all. A child needs his parents or reference adults to be by his side, to understand him and to be able to connect with him emotionally. For this, you need to accept that your child is suffering and that he needs to express what it is that has led him to behave that way and feel that way.

Accept his feelings, keep in mind that he is learning and that he is creating his world, he is learning to relate and face things … that is why it is so necessary that you respect his feelings and that you help him to understand himself, to put words to his emotions. But if your child gets angry because of a request, then if we consider that it should not be satisfied, it is explained to him even if it is not clear to you if he has understood it completely.

Thus, the message you give him is: ‘I understand and attend to your pain, because I am by your side and you can trust me, what you ask for I am not going to grant for logical reasons – it is not an imposition, it is a decision. But I’m here to help you manage your emotional frustration about not getting what you want. ‘ With this message and little by little, you will recognize your emotions and manage them effectively.