This document discusses how a child's developmental age may differ from their chronological age due to past trauma or attachment issues. It summarizes Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development, focusing on the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages. During the sensorimotor stage from birth to age 2, children learn object permanence and attachment. During the pre-operational stage from ages 2 to 7, children think visually and egocentrically, which can lead to fantastic stories and lies due to a lack of reasoning skills. The document provides examples of how one adopted child exhibits behaviors characteristic of an earlier developmental age due to past trauma.

1. Jane Mitchell March 2010
HOW OLD ARE YOU??!!
A couple of weeks ago our 9 year old adopted daughter was in the middle of a fairly run
of the mill tantrum when my husband (feeling exasperated as this had been going on for
an hour or so) said to her “How old are you?” to which I replied – “She’s Three at the
moment” as I led her firmly to the sofa for some time in with me. This set me to thinking
about all the behaviours which our children exhibit which are utterly confusing in context
of their chronological age but can give us an insight into their developmental age, or give
us a clue about what developmental stage they might be lacking. I would like to first
look at this in terms of intellectual or cognitive development.
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) developed a theory of how children’s cognitive development
occurs in stages
Sensorimotor
(Birth-2 yrs) Differentiates self from objects
Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer
present to the senses.
Pre-operational
(2-7 years) Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words
Concrete operational
(7-11 years) Can think logically about objects and events
Formal operational
(11 years and up) Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses
systematically
(http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm)
I would like to talk about the first two stages in greater depth, as these are the stages
where some of the behaviours our children exhibit such as crazy lying and stealing and
telling fantastic stories happen as a part of usual stages of development.
Sensorimotor – This is the stage when attachment occurs in the presence of a
relationship with an attuned primary carer. Learning is sensory, as the child has no
language to express ideas, thoughts or feelings (talking to and reading to your new baby
is essential to develop literacy). Life is all about smells, tastes, textures, sounds and
movement. The importance of this is for those of us whose children have attachment
difficulties – Holly Van Gulden says that attachment is a sensory process – this makes
sense when we consider that our first experience of attachment occurs during this sensory
phase of life - so along with all the strategies we have for creating attachment, we need

2. to remember our tone of voice, the rhythm of our speech or movement, touch and the
rhythm of touch (ie stroking, patting on the back) and our scent – always use the same
perfume or aftershave, and put some on the child so that they can “carry” you with them.
Secondly at this stage a child learns object permanence – this is an extremely important
developmental task. If a child does not learn object permanence then objects – and
people – pop in and out of existence. This not only makes it hard to attach but also this
concept helps to account for children who seem not to care about their possessions and
those who steal randomly especially from people they care about – effectively they are
taking a visual reminder to help them with this aspect of development, like a transitional
object, and this will often be something that they see as being important to the person
they want to remember. My daughter went through a stage of stealing her sisters’ bras
and hiding them in her room – she was seeking to maintain that sense of identification.
This idea of permanence is very important to the development of the self – the
permanence of people in our lives helps form our idea of who we are as part of that
group. We can understand this if we relate this to our own experiences because if our
own sense of permanence is shaken (ie by bereavement, or rupture of a significant
relationship) we feel lost and isolated. We can help our children with this by playing
simple childhood games such as peek-a-boo, hide and seek or hiding objects in our hands,
ensuring the “hidden” object is still partly visible, and also by maintaining our attachment
behaviours. Holly Van Gulden also recommends photos – not just of the parents but of
the parents sharing a meaningful moment with the child (sometimes using a photo she has
taken in therapy) – because this is a visual reminder not just of the parent but of the
relationship
At this stage a child also should be learning that they belong, and should feel that secure
feeling of being part of a family unit. – Maslow’s hierarchy of the human needs required
to achieve full potential states that belongingness needs are the next needs that have to be
fulfilled after physiological and safety needs are met, (see diagram below) and that a
sense of belonging is essential to build self esteem and confidence and desire to learn. I
believe that a developmental trauma at any point at this stage, for example due to neglect
or other abuse, or the trauma of being removed from the birth family may mean that there
is developmental delay in the cognitive (intellectual) social or emotional areas or indeed
all three. This is why claiming and belonging are so important for adoptive children, but
this can be a long and a slow process. We may feel that we have claimed our child and
that they belong to us, but their past experiences and attachment history may mean it
takes a long time for this to feel real for the child, and for them to change their own
adaptive behaviours (experienced as rejecting, aggressive or withdrawn) due to previous
experiences.
Pre-operational
At this stage children’s learning is still a highly visual process – they believe what they
can see. They have difficulty holding ideas in mind and cannot visualize something they
have not seen. Imaginary play and role play will be based on observed events or TV
characters. Children at this stage will still place themselves at the centre of any action –

3. they are egocentric, and only relate to their own feelings. This also means that they will
assume that they are responsible for any trauma which occurs, typically because of their
belief that they are “naughty” – my daughter has a default setting for her self image
which is that she was a horrible baby and that therefore it was her fault her mother did not
keep her. (6 years on, I am beginning to see a change in this attitude). Children at this
stage will often tell the most incredible stories and this is a normal developmental stage
for a three year old – I remember a child of three I was childminding coming back from
holiday and telling me that she had had quite a nice time except for when her Mummy
and Daddy rowed her across a lake and left her in a cave with a bear! Additionally the
child is still also operating from a mainly emotional base, so if they are caught out in
unwanted behaviour, they will in their panic tell a crazy lie. This is not naughty or
manipulative, it is just panic – fear of consequences, fear of rejection. If we are honest
with ourselves, even adults sometimes tell tall tales when they are very stressed. Very
many adoptive parents complain of exactly these two issues – crazy lies and incredible
stories. One of the problems is that when an older child is doing this, because they are at
the wrong developmental stage, adults think they must be telling the truth (or if it is an
obvious story, that they are being manipulative). Again to give an example, my own
daughter told her teacher that I was going to adopt a new baby to be a sister for her called
Lily, and showed her a photo (that she had got from the internet) and gave her a whole
imaginary history (strikingly similar to her own experience). Her teacher was astounded
when she congratulated me and I revealed it to be a fabrication, and was very concerned
about my daughter’s possible mental health. However I reminded her that although she is
9 rising 10, that developmentally and intellectually my daughter is pre-cognitive (has not
developed reasoning skills) and is simply displaying normal traits for her developmental
age. The school knew this and tried to apply it to her learning, but had not considered the
social and emotional context.
Fact or fiction can be very blurred for children at this stage. Remember that at this stage,
learning is a visual process, and you believe what you see in a very literal sense. This can
have repercussions, for example, having watched her favorite Disney film my daughter
said to me how she likes Labrador puppies. I agreed with her before gently saying to her
that she did know that they cannot really talk, didn’t she? “Oh yes” she said. Then added
“But those ones can!” Now we have dogs, walk dogs and frequently come into contact
with dogs and my daughter has never had one wish her a good morning yet, however
because the Labrador puppies (which she has not met with yet) “talked” on film, she
believed that as truth. Her logical thinking function has not yet developed, even though
at 9 you would expect this to have happened, and she has no concept of the mechanisms
of filming and camera tricks. Of course, this also means that I have to be careful what
she watches, because she will also believe in aliens, magic etc. For example we had to
stop watching “Return to Witch Mountain” because there were aliens popping up out of
the undergrowth – my daughter would have been watching for them all night out of her
window!
There are two points to take away from this – firstly that there may be developmental
delay as in the case of my daughter, or you may encounter this kind of behaviour if your

4. child is very stressed and regresses to an earlier stage. (When my daughter regresses it is
usually to age 2-3, as I said before).
During the Concrete operational and Formal operational stages, the brain is becoming
better integrated, so that the emotional mid brain is no longer always in the driving seat.
With this children and young people learn to mediate their actions, develop impulse
control and are better able to predict outcomes.