The Impact of Awareness on Learning Difficulties on Children’s Mental and Emotional Health
by Nori Sarman, Psychotherapist, Clinical Consulting Systems
The WHO World Mental Health Surveys (Kessler et al., 2007) reported that the onset of mental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD), is between the ages 5 to 15 years old. With the growing Internet connectivity and the affluence level of majority of families right now, it is undeniable that the flourishing awareness on the signs and characteristics of learning difficulty (LD) could have contributed to the significant increase of children being identified with LD. The readily available checklists online provide a useful guide for parents and schoolteachers to identify children at risk of LD. No doubt this checklist is not a tool to pinpoint specific LD but it could make a difference to these children because the earlier these children received specific diagnosis of LD the earlier they could receive appropriate intervention and learning support.
Children with LD such as Dyslexia, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and weak executive functions, often fall behind in mainstream school because they have difficulty comprehending through the way things were taught in school. Barkley (1997) reported that children with ADHD displayed strongest deficits in behavioral inhibitions, working memory, regulation of motivation, and motor control. As long as there is no one who could help these children to capitalize on their strengths, the learning and ability gaps will get wider. Until these gaps are bridged, students with LD are at high risk not only for academic problems but emotional and social too. The problems could include an inability to make friends and be apart from social groups. With consistent academic failure, these children develop poor self-concept. Due to their sensory challenges and poor social understanding, it is common that these children being misunderstood and labeled by their teachers and peers as clumsy, uncooperative, belligerent and disruptive in class. This often leads to anxiety, depression, aggression or other behaviour problems. People who are unaware of these children’s differences may blame their parents for their “misbehavior”. What makes the situation worse is when parents start adopting punitive measures due to the pressure to discipline their children. Thus, it creates a vicious cycle of emotional pressure for these children. Studies have shown that the emotional development of adolescents with LD is not notably positive and these children appear to be at increased risk of severe depression, suicide, juvenile delinquency and incarceration of teenagers (Huntington, 1993; Brent, 1995; Cocozza & Skowyra, 2000; Robertson et al., 2004).
One of the many solutions to help these children at risk is by providing early intervention through Educational Therapy and academic mentoring. Mainstream schoolteachers are very often burdened with high teacher to student’s ratio and overloaded by not only teaching duties but also administrative responsibilities and extra curricular activities. As such, an educational therapist will help to lighten the burden of schoolteachers by helping children with LD in the classroom to focus, communicate, participate in class activities, socialise and behave appropriately. In addition, the educational therapist will also help to convey class lessons to the child with LD at his/her level of understanding.
References:
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