Medicated Children and their Education - Essay Example

Medicated Children Running Head Medicated Children Medicated Children and their Education (An overview of medicated children and their educationstrategies) Medicated Children 2 Medicated children and their education is one of the growing concerns of the educationalists in the modern century. Most of the educational theories are found ineffective in dealing with this problem. The intellectual levels of these children are seems to be the same as that of the normal children. But the problem is because of their peculiar nature and changes in normal behavior how do we handle this situation as educators and/or parents? How will this affect other students in the same classroom? Do teachers need special training to handle these children? What learning theories might be particularly useful in working with these children? Even among the doctors, there are confusion and debate over the diagnosis of bipolar disorders. As per the video presented, there are around 1 billion children in America with bipolar disorders. Most of them are treated either by their family doctors or pediatricians. The school teachers also misinterpret the behaviors of such children as something else and they will take remedies as per their misinterpretations. Jacob and Jessica who appeared in the video are around 16 years of age and taking 8 to 9 behavior modification medications daily even at this small age. For educators and parents medicated children are raising so many questions regarding their behavior and learning. “Psychiatric medications can rescue a child from a desperate future, and sometimes even save a childs life. But their effects on childrens developing minds and bodies are largely unknown. Most arent approved by the FDA for use in children. Diagnosis is challenging since "normal" behavior varies widely. Developmental crises add to the confusion. Few objective tests exist to clarify Medicated Children 3 parent, teacher and child reports. Reported symptoms like impulsivity or hyperactivity may suggest a host of possible diagnoses. Parents are bound to wonder when medications will really help, and when theyre more trouble than theyre worth” (The Medicated Child). Parents are confused over the treatment of such children. They are in a dilemma whether to treat their child or not because of their concerns about the side effects of medications. Parents know the hyper activity in a child can adversely affect his learning and maturation. Moreover they are concerned about the future of their children, if they are not treated properly. The treatment of childhood psychological disorder may create an agony in the mind of the children when he grown up. However, if the treatment helps children function more effectively at home and at school, then it is better to go for it rather than avoiding it because of the concerns about the side effects. In some cases, cognitive, behavioral and other therapies may be useful instead of the medications. A healthy environment of the school and home can help the child immensely in regaining the emotional equilibrium. Medicated children and their peculiar behavior will certainly affect other children in the classroom. The teacher may not be able to concentrate fully on his subjects while teaching because of the unusual behaviors of the medicated children. Other children also cannot concentrate fully. The most common psychological disorder seen in children is the bipolar disorder or mood disorder. Such children may show some abnormal behavior for a short time period which will result in spoiling the concentration of the Medicated Children 4 teacher and other students. So it is well advisable to provide separate classrooms for such children. This will help the teacher in giving more focus on such children and also the teacher can adopt different strategies of learning for such children. Definitely the teachers need special training to handle medicated children. The important thing is the identification of the disordered children which even the doctors like family doctor or pediatrician may fail to diagnose. Only the qualified psychiatrist or the psychologist can identify such problems. So the teacher, who is constantly in touch with children, should be provided with proper training in student psychology as well as some clinical psychology as well. This will enable them in identifying the problematic children and in taking remedial measures. “Your childs school ought to offer plenty of opportunities for him to learn about himself, to discover his strengths, and, to compensate for his vulnerabilities, to experience success as the reward for his efforts. It can also be a useful resource to help you assess, observe and monitor your childs behavior. Often, a teacher might be the first person to alert you to potentially troubling behaviors. This may be painful to hear, but your relationship with teachers and other school personnel will be even more important to preserve and strengthen” (The Medicated Child). The normal learning theories may not be sufficient enough to teach the medicated children. Theory of formal psychology or faculty psychology can help disordered children up to certain extent. As per this theory, the mind is thought to be composed of a number of independent faculties such as attention, memory, Medicated Children 5 imagination, reasoning, and judging. Educationalists are of the view that once these faculties are acquired, they could be easily be transferred to new situations. So the identification of the defective faculty of mind of the disordered child may help the teacher and the doctor in helping the medicated children’s learning. “The key insight to take home from learning theory is that most behavior is learned behavior, for animals as well as human beings. If behavior can be learned, it can also be unlearned, so long as the right steps are followed, and the right reinforcements or punishments are applied. If your problem has to do with a bad habit youd like to change, learning more about learning theory is a good idea for you.” (Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. and Jolyn Wells-Moran, Ph.D.) Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning also may help in the teaching process of disordered children. This theory deals with the connection between a particular stimulus and response. The basic principle behind this theory is that the conditioned response is acquired by pairing the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus repeatedly. This increases the strength of the connection until a point is reached where conditioned response is emitted to a conditioned stimulus without the aid of unconditioned stimulus. Mental events like thoughts and feelings are important as far the learning of a disordered student is concerned. The thoughts and feeling of such students will vary regularly and no one can predict his behavior at particular time period. The moods are constantly changing for a medicated student. “Cognitive behaviorism is a newer approach that applies learning theory to mental events like thoughts and feelings. Medicated Children 6 Cognitive behavioral therapists teach people new ways of thinking, and in so doing, help them to overcome various problems that stem from dysfunctional thinking, including depression and anxiety problems (Depression and anxiety can be seen and successfully treated as just another variety of learned behavior, according to this approach). (Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. and Jolyn Wells-Moran, Ph.D.) Phobias such as anxiety and depression are constantly associated with mentally disordered students. The root causes of such disorders must be identified in order to treat such things effectively. “A good example of the learning theory based behavioral psychotherapeutic approach is something called Systematic Desensitization, a technique that I believe dates back to the 1930s. Systematic Desensitization is a therapy protocol or set of coordinated exercises that are designed to help people with phobias get over their fears.” (Mark Dombeck, Ph.D.) Medicated children should be treated with special considerations. A combined work of Parents, teachers, doctors and the affected children can minimize the dangers of mental disorders of such children. Parents should not be hesitated to treat their children if found something wrong with their behavior. The root cause of the behavior problem must be identified with the combined efforts of teacher, student, doctor and the parents. The teacher should adopt proper learning strategies based on the requirements of the affected children. They should be taught in separate classrooms though they should be allowed to mingle with other normal children as well. Medicated Children 7 References 1. The Medicated Child Retrieved on 17/12/08 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/parents/ 2. Mark Dombeck, Jolyn Wells-Moran, Learning Theory Retrieved on 17/12/08 http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=9712&cn=353 3. Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. Learning Theory Retrieved on 17/12/08 http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=9285 Read More