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overanxious parents, or appropriate early intervention
- submitted by Liz Ditz on 04/07/2008
The old way was “wait to fail”. the newer approach is “response to intervention” — meaning children who are not thriving in school are offered levels of intervention. This may or may not involve labelling.
Ms. Keenan, I don’t know you or your family. what is true is that much, much higher demands are put on kids’ fine motor skills in preschool and kindergarten now than was true even 15 years ago. Getting “therapy” at an early age may now appropriate where it wasn’t in 1980.
According to a recent study, somewhere between 10% to 30% of children have difficulty learning to produce rapid, legible hand-written work(1). Handwriting difficulty is often linked with other problems such as attention deficit disorder. Poor quality of handwriting of children with handwriting problems seems particularly related to a deficiency in visual-motor integration. (2)
Children who do not acquire fluent, legible handwriting in the early years often experience far-reaching negative effects on both academic success and self-esteem.(1)
<blockquote>“Handwriting is one of the basic building blocks of good writing and plays a critical role in learning,” Graham, Currey Ingram Professor of Special Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, said. “Young children who have difficulty mastering this skill often avoid writing and their writing development may be arrested. they also may have trouble taking notes and following along in class, which will further impede their development.”</blockquote>
There are three possible sources of children developing handwriting difficulties: a problem with the child, a problem with the teacher, or a problem with the curricula (and related materials).
In ” how do primary grade teachers teach handwriting? a national survey”,(3) the authors found that
<blockquote>Nine out of every ten teachers indicated that they taught handwriting, averaging 70 minutes of instruction per week. Only 12% of teachers, however, indicated that the education courses taken in college adequately prepared them to teach handwriting. despite this lack of formal preparation, the majority of teachers used a variety of recommended instructional practices for teaching handwriting. the application of such practices, though, was applied unevenly, raising concerns about the quality of handwriting instruction for all children.</blockquote>
1. Feder KP, Majnemer a. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2007 Apr;49(4):312-7.2. Volman MJ, van Schendel BM, Jongmans MJ. Am J Occup Ther. 2006 Jul-Aug;60(4):451-60.3. Graham S, Harris KR, Mason L, Fink-Chorzempa B, Moran S, Saddler B Reading and Writing 2008 21(1-2):49-69.
<a href=”http://www.newsweek.com/id/67956″>Handwriting Key to Learming</a>, Newsweek, November 12 2007
<a href=”http://ldpodcast.blogspot.com/2007/12/show-75-dr-steve-graham-development-of.html”>LD Podcast: Dr. Steve Graham on writing development</a>.
<a href=”http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/files/handwriting.mp3″>Interview with Steve Graham</a>
Turning from handwriting and delays in fine motor skills to the broad area of ADHD:
My view is ADHD is definitely over-diagnosed in some areas, but underdiagnosed and treated in other areas.
Froelich et al. (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161(9):857-864 ) <strong> Conclusions:</strong> of US children aged 8 to 15 years, 8.7%, an estimated 2.4 million, meet DSM-IV criteria for ADHD. less than half of children meeting DSM-IV criteria report receiv- ing either a diagnosis of ADHD or regular medication treat- ment. Poor children are most likely to meet criteria for ADHD yet are least likely to receive consistent pharmacotherapy.
As to the argument that ADHD is not a real condition, but the medicalization of normal behavior? in one sense, <a href=”http://ihd.berkeley.edu/hinshres.htm”>Steven Hinshaw</a> agrees. Answering the question, <a href=”http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=conv/hinshaw”>Why do some psychologists claim that ADHD doesn’t exist as a syndrome?”</a> Hinshaw says:
“I believe that there are both good and bad reasons for this claim. the behaviors that comprise ADHD (inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity) are indeed part of normal development, so it is a real and valid question to wonder where the diagnostic cutoff should be. also, the recent publicity about the rise in diagnosis and treatment makes many suspicious of ‘over-medicalization’.
“On the other hand, the same issues, such as the normal distribution of constituent symptoms, and the difficulty of ascertaining cutoff points, pertain to many overtly “medical” conditions (for example, hypertension). Yet many people tend to see behavior as completely under one’s volitional control. I believe that misinformation and the tendency to stigmatize persons with behavior disorders are the real culprits.”
Later in the <a href=”http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=conv/hinshaw”>same interview</a>:
“Perhaps one of the most shocking findings, says Hinshaw, has been that children with ADHD are the most disliked group of youngsters in any crowd—more so than children with depression, autism, or delinquent problems. Hinshaw explained to a group at last year’s BrainConnection to Education spring conference that research has shown that peer rejection is the best predictor in young children of later problems in school, including dropout and mental health problems.”
David Rabiner has some excellent resources for parents and clinicians. his discussion of <a href=”http://www.helpforadd.com/mta-study/”>the recently-completed Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA)</a> is particularly clear. the MTA study found that for many children, a combination of behavior management training (for parents and for the child) plus very closely controlled medication made the biggest improvement.
There is no one correct way to treat ADHD.
Other authoritative sources of information:<a href=”http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/adhd/complete-publication.shtml”>NIMH on ADHD</a>. Includes discussion of medication issues. <a href=”http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/attentiondeficithyperactivitydisorder.html”>Medline plus on ADHD</a>, also discusses medication <a href=”http://www.help4adhd.org/index.cfm?varLang=en”>National Resource Center on ADHD</a>, a lay site sponsored by the largest national organization, CHADD.
:D:D thanks hahahaa
they come in like greeting cards and stuff theres dogs, cats ….with long necks and big bubbly eyes.
does anyone know any funny saying or quotes for aim or myspace to put on 6 lines or less please!
