One of the interesting things about having a son with developmental delays is that he is on a different timeline than typical kids. My son, Kai, is six years old (seven next month, it’s going too fast, my baby!) and has a bunch of diagnoses including PVL (periventricular leukomalacia), duplicate chromosome 16, autism, sensory processing disorder and developmental delays in every area.
Depending on who you ask and if Kai felt like performing on the day of the test, developmentally Kai is between 16-36 months. This means that he has the speech of about a 16 month old and the gross motor skills of a 36 month old and everything else falls somewhere in between.
But these are just averages. Kai is constantly blossoming in different areas at different times. We have been enjoying his latest achievement this last couple of weeks. Kai has discovered cause and effect. But if you don’t know what that is or how to recognize it, it could possibly drive you absolutely mad.
Kai has been endlessly turning the light switches on and off.
The light’s on. It’s off. It’s on. It’s off. Can you imagine getting your child ready for a bath and having him stop before getting in, naked and ready to be bathed, to turn the light switch on and off about 15 times?
This could easily be misinterpreted as “bad” behavior. Something to be corrected. But his dad and I are absolutely filled with joy every time he does it. We laugh and grin at each other like idiots. Our incredible son has discovered cause and effect!
What is cause and effect?
Cause and effect examples are all around us. It is simply what happens (the effect) when something makes it happen (the cause).
Developmentally, cause and effect is something an infant starts to experiment with at about 8 months old. The child may bang a spoon on their highchair tray, hear a sound and then bang it again to see if it happens again. Then, from about 9-17 months, the child begins to experiment to see if it happens repeatedly. Have you ever gotten into a situation with a toddler where they drop their spoon on the floor and you pick it up and give it back to them only to have them drop it again? They watch you to see if you are going to pick it up again, don’t they? This seemingly silly game is the child experimenting with cause and effect. They are wondering if it will work again. And again. And again.
At around 18 months of age, the experimenting continues. The child wonders if they can achieve the effect by doing it in a different way or in a different place. First they try to knock over blocks by kicking them. Then they rebuild and try to knock them over with their hand. The child finds out, hey, they still fall! Cause and effect.
At 36 months this is usually locked in and the child can verbally predict what could happen with assistance. Perhaps an if/then presentation will prompt them to show what they know. For example, a teacher may say, “If I knock this cup of water over, then what could happen?” The child begins to predict the effect. They may say, “The water will spill!”
Want more examples? Take a look at this terrific resource:
https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09cogdevfdcae.asp
Kai is at the 18 month old stage of cause and effect. He is experimenting with all of the light switches in the house. On, off. On, off. Then he goes to a different one. On, off. On, off. Hey, it works for ALL of the switches!!!
We are so proud of Kai for reaching this milestone. Because he is at about 16 months old developmentally for speech, the next stage where he can verbally predict what could happen if a cause and effect situation is presented to him will probably take a lot longer. But that won’t mean he doesn’t understand it well. It will just mean that he can’t verbalize it yet.
It is very easy to misunderstand the intentions and thought processes of a child with special needs. It can be very beneficial for caregivers to pause and think about what the child could possibly be learning when they do something that may be perceived as annoying or misbehaving. Be careful not to shut down what, for your child, is a milestone achievement!