Bumps along the road to development

There are many reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected pattern.

A baby’s development could be affected straight from birth, if the mother is alcohol dependent the baby develops foetal alcohol syndrome. This can either cause short or long term memory loss. Also by following the sequence of a baby’s development you look at the rate on how they’re developing through the physical motor skills, social and cognitive and language skill. Now, if for example a baby does not start to walk (motor skill) by the age of 2yrs there could be something wrong with its motor skill as by 2yrs a baby should be able to walk. Another example if a baby can not say a couple of words by the ages of 2-3yrs once again there could be something wrong with its language skills.

These problems have to be flagged up with either a health visitor or doctor. If there is a slight delay in the development the baby may have special needs in some areas of their development, if they do they would be closely monitored. Sometimes there may not be anything necessarily wrong it just may mean a slight delay in the baby’s development as most babies develop at a different rate.

Children’s and young people’s development continues to be monitored at school.
Some children’s problems in their development may not be picked up straight away when they’re at school. This would often mean they get behind on their work and they would most often find it difficult to catch up.

Compared to special needs schools where teachers are trained to teach special needs children, teachers in other schools may not have the skill to teach children who may have behavioural difficulties, communication needs, physical disabilities, learning disabilities and special educational needs so this means the children’s learning gets behind. Also the school may not have a budget to get a TA for each child’s individual learning needs and resources may be inadequate for them to use. Another personal factor is if a child who may have special needs could be taken out of lesson if they have to monthly check up’s at the hospital, or have to have constant physio therapy or anything else to do with medical matters. This means once again by missing lessons their learning gets behind.

External problems are another factor why some children’s and young people’s development may not follow an expected pattern. For example a child or young person may have constant pressure from their parent/s to do well in their education. As for this a child or young person may rebel which may affect their learning. To support what I have just mentioned I read in a recent newspaper article that parents are desperate for their children to attend grammar school. In order for their child/children to pass their entrance exam their parent/s hire private tutors so their child/children can have extra tuition lessons after school, weekends and during school holidays. By placing this pressure on them some children begin to rebel or become too anxious to sit the exam.

More children’s and young people’s social interaction is suffering these days as as more children watch too much television or play computer games they’re not encouraged enough to socialise with other people their own age.

A Marenetto