Throughout your career as parents, how many times have you heard teachers and even psychologists say “the child has no learning problem, he is just immature. You have to give him more time, he will mature…”
Do you know how many times I, as a neuropediatrician, have heard this? Unfortunately, many, too many. And not only in children who have not yet been evaluated by a professional, but sometimes even in those who have been diagnosed.
Normally, the adjective “immature” is used as a non-medical, imprecise term that does not establish or define the cause. Normally, this term is used to refer to a person who acts as if he or she is younger than his or her actual age, behaves in a childish manner, and is dependent on other adults.
Immanuel Kant, the historical philosopher, defines maturity as the “inability to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another”. Thus, immaturity would refer to those behavior patterns that are not appropriate to the actual age and intelligence level of the child.
It should be taken into account that this maturation of the different brain functions is essential for learning correctly. Thus, the functions that form intelligence, model behavior and regulate emotions are achieved following a series of patterns throughout the different evolutionary stages.
A child who, for some reason, is not able to follow learning processes at the same pace as others, or who does not behave or socialize like other children in his or her environment, by definition, has a problem. In this context, immaturity is not a “variant of normality” nor does it correspond to a specific medical term or diagnosis. It will simply be the consequence of a problem, which teachers must be able to detect so that specialists can diagnose.
In this line, in the case of any child who presents the above characteristics, who seems “immature”, or if parents or teachers detect a behavior or learning level different from the rest of the children, the first step will always be to ask why?
Causes influencing neurodevelopment
The reasons may be many and varied, and it will be the neurodevelopmental specialist who will determine the reason and propose a solution to the problem. Among the most common causes are the following:
- Specific learning disorders: dyslexia, dyscalculia, coordination disorder.
- Attention deficit disorders with or without hyperactivity (ADHD).
- Autism spectrum disorder
- Cognitive delay
It cannot be ignored that between ten and fifteen percent of school-age children present some type of learning disorder. Thus, in a class of 25 children, between two and three will suffer from one of these problems. However, before we can say that a child has a maturity problem, these disorders must be ruled out.
However, why shouldn’t we wait to act and solve the problem? In this case, mention should be made of brain plasticity at pediatric ages, which offer a unique opportunity for a psychological and/or pedagogical approach to the less developed brain functions and to improve the child’s behavioral, academic and social functioning. After this period of development, the opportunity to change it may never come.
Along these lines, “earlier is better”. It should be clear that the difficulties do not go away with time, but only jeopardize the social and emotional development of the child with the problem if no action is taken.