The effect for the child of being the youngest of the class

Within the same classroom we find children who were born in different months, and the difference between being born in January and being born in December, may be noticeable in the first ones years of schooling. The issue of age difference is very debated and studied. Whether they should be enrolled

Within the same classroom we find children who were born in different months, and the difference between being born in January and being born in December, may be noticeable in the first ones years of schooling. The issue of age difference is very debated and studied. Whether they should be enrolled by year of birth, or not or if this difference influences learning.

In Guiainfantil.com we discuss the effect that the child of the class has on the child.

How the child affects the child in the class

Developmental, learning or developmental psychology tells us that each child has a different rhythm of development and learning, and marks a series of evolutionary milestones and approximate ages of acquisition . It is true that the development is not the same in all children, that each one takes its rhythm, but it is also true that in children with a normal development, a difference of 10 months of age marks different maturational and learning levels.

That is, the month of the children's birth matters. This does not mean that the child in the class is always behind the older ones, but it is something that must be taken into account. In the smallest, for example,an age difference of 5 months can make the difference between crawling and walking, entre or between talking and not talking. In the first years of life, the evolutionary changes are very fast, and in a matter of months the children evolve and mature at a speed of vertigo.

Differences between the child in the class and others can be seen in the acquisition of skills such as literacy, mathematics, psychomotor development, language, attention skills, regulation of one's behavior or understanding and acceptance of norms . Each learning is based on a series of cognitive and psychomotor skills and abilities that not all children achieve at the same time, so the importance of personalized teaching becomes very evident.

At 5 years of age a child can be prepared to learn the sum, but a child of 4 can not yet, and both children can live in the same classroom. The normal thing will be that the 4 is harder to learn, needs more time, or just learn it later, when it is ready. Or tying the laces or buttoning the baby, which require certain levels of fine motor skills and autonomy, that a child born 10 or 11 months before another can achieve but the smallest still can not.

How to organize learning for the little one in the class

What can be the problem? On the one hand, the curricular objectives do not usually take into account the year of birth of the children, and at the end of the course the children must have acquired a series of knowledge and reached certain objectives. It is up to the teacher to give each child what he needs, but the reality of the classrooms is that this is complicated. We have children with age, maturational, developmental, social or cultural differences, and with 25 children per classroom and one teacher, the task of individualizing and flexing, and at the same time complying with the program, is difficult. The debate is open among those who defend that these differences are not significant and do not influence children and those who defend themselves, and that it would be necessary to attend school by age and not by year of birth.

(Would it be better to school the child born in December 2015 with those born in January 2016 ??).

Although it is true that this difference in age does not necessarily mean a delay in children, nor a problem, if it is important to take it into account at the time of beginning in certain learning at an early age.

Why the child in the class can be diagnosed as a false ADHD Certain learning difficulties, attention, false ADHD, delays in learning, may be caused, among other things, by these maturational differences between children. Therefore,

the month of birth is important, but not conditioning

, and before any suspicion of difficulties, go to experts who guide us and advise on the origin of the difficulties.

Some research on the subject: in the British Institute for Fiscal Studies, they calculate that late children have a 72% chance of being considered a student with special educational needs. A Canadian study investigated the diagnosis of ADHD in children, and found that children born in December were 41% more likely to be treated for ADHD than those born in January. The same thing happened for girls, with 77% more likely to be treated if they were born in December.