On the Rise, or Just Now Noticed?

A lot of discussion goes on regarding the increase in diagnoses of disorders such as ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, and even about whether or not they really are real.  Theories range from food sensitivities and allergies, poisoning from vaccines, vitamin deficiencies, problems during pregnancy and birth, to heredity, to doctors just liking to write prescriptions and parents wanting to “drug” their children so they don’t have to parent, and even to conspiracy theories of the government wanting to control children with medication.

Personally, I believe these disorders are real.  I know my son has ADHD and Sensory Processing issues and could have told you that before they were diagnosed.  I don’t know why they exist.  I tend towards the heredity and problems during pregnancy and birth theories because I know my child’s history, but I really don’t know the cause. 

I did, however, read a very interesting article the other day though that makes a lot of sense to me about why many more children are diagnosed with these disorders than ever before:  it’s not that they didn’t exist before, it’s because changes in our education system have made it harder for these children to succeed academically, and so more parents approach their physicians with concerns.

I always knew that my son had some “issues.”  I honestly never put too much thought into many of them because I have Sensory Processing issues also.  I completely understand why he can’t stand wearing denim or long pants...it’s the same reason I can’t stand to wear turtlenecks or tops that button too high.  The same sounds that freak him out freak me out.  We both dislike talking on the phone.  Sympathy and similar feelings can be hard for us, not because we don’t care, but we can have a hard time interpreting people’s feelings and how they expect us to react to them unless they are directly told to us.  I made it this far in life with those issues, and while I do have my eccentricities, I’ve made it this far OK, and so I’ve never really worried too much about the same issues in my son.  While I did express concerns to our pediatrician when Aiden was a toddler, and to his kindergarten teacher when he was having trouble holding pencils and crayons, when I was told he didn’t meet the criteria for testing, I let it go.

Until he started failing school.

At that point, I pushed.   We had testing.  He is being treated with medication for ADHD and is finally at the top of the waiting list for Occupational Therapy and will begin that soon.  There are obvious changes and improvements in all aspects of his life.  But he still really struggles in some aspects of school.

According to the article, education has become much more focused on social skills.  There are many group projects.  Reading comprehension tests ask the reader to not only comprehend what happened in the story, but to comprehend the motivations and feelings of the characters when those aspects are not explicitly defined in the story.  Even lower-grade math sheets may ask to count the happy people in the picture, which requires a child to be able to read the non-verbal queues.  We are not testing reading and math, we are testing social abilities.    

The article is right. Aiden has group projects at least weekly, and I’ve seen his homework and tests.  Makes perfect sense to me now why my child can read way above grade level, enjoy the book, and tell me about it, even have passages memorized, but yet be failing reading.  It also explains why he prefers non-fiction (as do I!). When Aiden asks me for help with his homework, I often can’t figure out the answer either....and guess what?  They are usually the “Why did Jimmy not want to eat the noodles?” kind of question.  In our life experience, people don’t want to eat noodles because they feel funny in your mouth, but that is not one of the possible answers.  By integrating the social aspects of life into educational assignments, we are assuming we all have the same social abilities and life experiences.  We don’t.  And just because Susie isn’t sure if the stick figure on the far right is displaying a happy face or not does not mean she can’t count, but if she chose the “wrong” answer because she determines it is not, it’s assumed that it’s her math skills that are at fault.

So her parents seek evaluations they may otherwise have not.  And the incidence of disorders appears to be increasing.  And the number of bright children falling through the cracks gets scarier.

Perhaps it is a good idea to teach some aspects of social skills in schools, but do we need to hide them in the other lessons?

And that’s why they have wine.  And why Aiden has an appointment tomorrow regarding admission to a private school for children with his sort of disablities.