Pathology and standards of normalcy

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16 Jun 2005, 7:31 am

*I'm sticking this in the parents forum, since I think it'll be more relevant to parents than asperger's in general. I'm not a parent myself.

http://www.homeeducator.com/FamilyTimes/articles/12-2article11.htm

Excerpt wrote:

...Another straight jacket victim of our schools was Marly. Like Simon's nursery school, Marly's school had tried to insist that she be placed on Ritalin, even though contrary to Simon, Marly had a reduced energy level. In her case the justification for the Ritalin was her "learning disability." The soft-spoken eleven-year old was still not reading. The Ritalin was supposed to help her concentrate so she would become proficient in phonemic awareness, blends, diphthongs, etc. and by so doing finally become literate.

When I tested her, again as part of a normal control group, Marly started failing test questions a year below her age level. However, she successfully passed test items all the way through Superior Adult II, thereby going through the ceiling of the test. This precluded an accurate measurement of the full extent of her academic intelligence. Paradoxically, rather than appreciating the child's outstanding academic intelligence, her school had drawn the conclusion that their testing indicated learning disability. My conclusion was vastly different. The test items that Marly had failed during our session required rote memory; i.e. they were non-contextual nonsense material. The more abstract and therefore difficult the test question, the more the child came into her own; which was the reason she passed items on the Superior Adult II level thereby going through the ceiling of the test. It was the school that had failed, not Marly, by dumbing down what they required she learn. When taught with the contextually oriented phonics reading program Ball-Stick-Bird, which allows for a reduced emphasis on rote learning, she became a proficient reader within weeks...

Do any parents here get pressured by schools to 'do something' about their kids, merely because of some non-pathological difference? How many schools look into the causes behind these so-called 'defects' before demanding medication? How many schools just assume the kid is stupid and leave it at that?

I did far more poorly than all but the dimmest kids in class when it came to rote learning, and since we never did anything but rote learning, I was never able to show or even exercise my capabilities, and thus was deemed 'stupid' and 'never going to amount to anything' by my teachers (rather than anyone actually bothering to look into the matter). One BSc later and I'm still very bitter about it...

Nobody even cared enough to notice the chronic depression, which was something that should have been adressed, though judging by how badly antidepressants messed me up at a later point in my life, this may have been a good thing. <Memories of a 'kids don't get depressed' attitude where he grew up>

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c`mom

16 Jun 2005, 11:17 am

My daughter's school insisted that she had ADD because she would look out the window and not listen during reading time. They said she would need Ritalin in order to be able to concentrate because she was not reading. I took her to a neuropsychologist to be tested for any problems and we fouund out early on it was dyslexia. Luckily for my AS son we know why he looks out the window. If he is forced to maintain eye contact he doesn`t hear a word anyone is saying. Unfortunately schools are full of armchair diagnosticians who basically want all children to act the same. It is up to the parents who really know their kids to fight for them.

Pandora
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25 Jul 2005, 7:01 am

Some kids don't concentrate in school because they find the work too boring. Maybe the teacher should give them some more advanced work to do so they won't be so bored. It's ridiculous to say the kids should have medication just because they aren't paying attention.

They need to be examined for things such as hearing impairments and vision impairments for a start as these things can cause "inattentiveness".

Also, it tends to be forgotten that boys find it harder to sit still and be quiet for a long time than girls. Kids are being medicated for behaviours that would have simply been described as "boisterous" or "very active" in years past.

Teachers are often not trained in handling kids who differ from the norm and often the norm is how a quiet, well behaved girl would act.

Also, how many times are kids described as having "learning difficulties" when in fact there is a "teaching difficulty" ie. the lack of realisation that one-size doesn't fit all and that different people have different learning styles.

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Prometheus
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25 Jul 2005, 2:51 pm

Rote learning is so bad for me that I still don't know the alphabet or the order of the months (I can get some of it right, but not all of it)

Quote:

That essentally happened to me. I was told that since I could not do any of the coursework I was a idiot and should be held for a couple grades. But what happened was that I went on to high school and graduated in the top 10% of my class and even then some teachers felt that I did not perform to the best of my ablity.

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26 Jul 2005, 11:41 am

Pandora wrote:

Most of the work in primary schools is boring. Many kids that I have noticed have done much better with hands on work, like science experiments instead of reading out of a science book, acting out plays or stories or experiencing the basic ways to pan for gold when studying the California Gold Rush. As kids get older, more complex experiments and activities can happen, like performing Shakespeare, dissections in biology class and playing games for probability in math.

At the school I went to, they tested for vision problems, but not for hearing. I've had vision problems since I was little and have always had trouble paying attention in class, especially when I am sitting near the back of the room.

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tokaia
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09 Aug 2005, 2:07 am

Pandora wrote:

It's ridiculous to say the kids should have medication just because they aren't paying attention.

Not to mention how badly these "medications" may mess them up later! If you research the side effects of these things, its quite disturbing.

My boyfriend is extremely well-read in almost any psychotropic drug you can think of, and the negative side affects of nearly all of them are staggering. Especially with the SSRI's and atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel (which I was on for 4 years, resulting in morbid obesity). How many people here know that Desoxyn is methamphetamine? Many other stimulants designed for ADD/ADHD are amphetamines (different from meth).

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09 Aug 2005, 2:20 am

depends on the culture. in a pill-popping culture, you get pills.

now, i would never assert that the pharmaceutical treatment of conditions is never appropriate - i'm not one of the loonies who maintain that one can treat schizophrenia or severe clinical depression with a nice cup of herbal tea, or acute appendicitis with arnica. i do try NOT to take prescribed medication myself, but that's my choice, and i will take it if the situation/condition warrants it, making sure i know the contrindications etc., so i can make an informed choice. i try to go for the preventative stuff, myself, and i do self medicate wherever possible (i'm reasonably clued up on herbalism, aromatherapy, bach flower rememdies and homeopathy, and that sort of stuff).

in the UK, ADHD assessment used to involve reams of paperwork, which was a nightmare, but thorough (i had to do it for a kid i was teaching). nowadays, i've heard, they shove some ritalin into the child, and if it slows them down, then they've got ADHD. scary.

i do think that drugs are prescribed far more often than they need to be - after all, the emergence of things like MRSA is basically down to the overuse of antibiotics. but they are a great tool if they are used judiciously, rather than "quick fix", blanket use.

Pandora
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21 Nov 2007, 6:23 am

tokaia wrote:

Pandora wrote:

It's ridiculous to say the kids should have medication just because they aren't paying attention.

Not to mention how badly these "medications" may mess them up later! If you research the side effects of these things, its quite disturbing.

SSRI's never did much good for me and they contributed to weight gain and slower metabolism which made me more depressed at the time. It worries me that SSRIs are still widely prescribed too.

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21 Nov 2007, 7:28 am

That article has gone straight into my bookmarks.

Two paragraphs in particular stood out for me:

Quote:

Marly's gifts like Simon's were viewed as indicating a cognitive defect, even a pathology, and therefore had to be treated, had to be changed – presumably for the good of the child? The same happened to Rupert, although this time the concern of the school was not that he had an attention deficit disorder or a learning disability. Instead it was his preference for numbers and his budding fascination for higher mathematics to the exclusion of "appropriate socialization," i.e. the school's social programs. The school "experts" were sure that something was very wrong with a child who had only his dog and another math "weirdo" for a friend.

Quote:

Rupert's Dad's angry reaction: "So why did the school make my child so miserable? The only time Rupert was happy was when he was home with his dog and discussing math with that supposed 'weirdo' friend. Now that he's in college he's happy surrounded by fellow 'weirdoes.' And when those 'weirdoes' graduate from college they get really good jobs, if they don't go on to graduate school. The large company I work for is eager to hire these youngsters, and they pay them handsomely. What's the matter with our schools that they insist that all the children be the same? In the real world we need different talents. Why do our schools create so much unhappiness?"

Pathologising every difference is a mistake. Forcing everyone to fit into the same mould is a mistake; all you end up with is faulty clones when you could have had brilliant individuals.

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