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SN children

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Original poster

Does your child know how old they are? what age did they understand that?

12 replies

yukoncher · 12/05/2011 14:56

My 4 yr old undiagnosed son can't get his head around how old he is. He can respond to 'what's your name' but age seems too confusing. Also days and times and the concept of time basically?
Does anyone else's child have difficulty with this? or what age did they learn it?

OP posts:

intothewest · 12/05/2011 15:04

I repeated 'how old are you?'then answered 'I'm 6' - the same with 'what's your name? ' for months- He now answers those questions....It was fun on his 7th. birthday ! With time the signs for 'now' 'next' and 'later' were invaluable

tabulahrasa · 12/05/2011 15:07

um, about 3 or 4 I think - but more from repetition rather than any real understanding of age.

I know from spending time in a P1 classroom that a fair few children start school with no idea what day of the week it is or how they work other than being random words, lol.

Latteaddict · 12/05/2011 15:19

Think DS2 was around 6/7. I know when he was having his 6th birthday and I was telling him that it was going to be his birthday he was cross-referencing it with his memory of what happened on his previous birthday. So I spent a lot of time having to drum it into him that he would not be 5 (again) but he would be "5 plus one more year, 5 plus one is 6, you will be 6!"

He then made a giant leap when he was 7, and can now tell me what day of the week every birthday between now and him being 20 will be, he asked spontaneously for a party for when he was going to be a particular age (turned out that year's birthday fell on a Saturday, so no school and a good party day!) and is very interested in exactly how old everyone is (and he's very good at broadcasting this info to everyone - as I found out again last week when I had a birthday and everyone knew just how old I now was!).

Tiggles · 12/05/2011 16:02

Ds2 is 4.6 and knows his age and gets concept of adding on one for each birthday. However his 'natural' maths skills are fairly good e.g. He is in nursery and can already add any numbers up to 10 without me ever having to teach him how. He just knows the answer instantly.
However he has no grasp of today/ tomorrow/ yesterday and we are working hard on this at the moment. Not to much avail. He is possible asd awaiting assessment.
Ds 3 is 2.8 and is convinced he is 3, will be 3 next birthday etc.
Ds1 has severe as but got idea about birthdays quite early around 2 or 3.

devientenigma · 12/05/2011 18:29

Through repetition again here,caught on this year, when he was 10.

TotalChaos · 12/05/2011 18:45

Rote answer to how old are you probably around 4 or 5, but with understanding of time probably at around 6. as another poster said, difficulties with time concepts are not unsual amongst non-SN reception age kids. I found it helped to give days of the week a number along with the name when DS was 5ish, with Monday being day no. 1.

HecateQueenOfTheNight · 12/05/2011 18:49

yes. my eldest - who will be 12 on Sunday as it happens - knows how old he is. my youngest - 10 - sort of does, but I get the feeling he's remembering he's been told it rather than keeping track of and understanding it, iyswim.

Neither of them knew until the last couple of years.

time etc - again, last couple of years. my youngest is still a bit shakey on it but my eldest has cracked it.

Marne · 12/05/2011 19:54

DD2 (ASD) now knows how old she is (after telling her 100 times), she's 5, a year ago she wouldn't have even understood the question 'how old are you?' .

Triggles · 12/05/2011 20:30

DS2 is 4yo and sort of understands. But he calls it his "number"... as in "what your number?" "I'm four" and DS3's number is 1, and daddy's number is 46....

but then our house, nanny's house, sister's house... they're all known by numbers too.... if he wants to go to nanny's house, he asks to go to that number...

So I'm not really certain how WELL he understands it....

Triggles · 12/05/2011 20:31

sorry... meant to add if you ask him how old he is, he can't give an answer... you have to ask his number.... (sometimes makes me feel as if I'm in a Doctor Who episode )

Marne · 12/05/2011 20:43

Reminds me of when i ask dd2 'what is your favorite colour?' she always looks at her clothes and says the colour she is wearing so she hasn't really got the question (just the 'your' and 'colour' bit).

rebl · 13/05/2011 18:48

My ds knows he's 5. He knows he was 4 not long ago. So he thinks he's going to be 6 next week. He has no concept of time. I can still tell him we're going out in 5 mins and then 30secs later tell him we're leaving. I can't do that with my dd (NT also 5). He also still doesn't know days of the week. His favourite day is the weekend!

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