learning-problems.html

Kei was born prematurely and developed severe allergies in the early months of life. He was hospitalized with a bacterial infection as an infant, and was diagnosed with asthma at one year of age. He was a hyperactive child with learning problems, and he struggled to keep up with his peers.

At thirteen years of age, he was several years behind his peers both academically and physically. Although he was in junior high school, he was functioning at the third-grade level. In addition, his speech was unclear and disorganized.

This article was originally published in 1987. It is no less pertinent today since Ritalin usage is now widespread and well entrenched as accepted management of learning disorders accompanied by short attention span and hyperactivity.

Unfortunately, this unquestioning acceptance fosters abuse, as we have learned in our experiences with many established treatment procedures for brain injury. It is vital that we guard against using such symptomatic treatment to the detriment of dealing directly with the basic pathological process itself.

During the fifty years on this campus we have seen thousands of brain-injured children. These children have covered the entire spectrum of brain injury from the most profoundly brain-injured children to children who are so mildly brain-injured as to appear well but who are not well.

It's extremely helpful to understand the completeness of this spectrum. Let's look at 300 brain-injured children, each exactly eight years old and all brain-injured.

Let's begin with an eight-year-old child who is just now dead of a brain injury and therefore just outside the spectrum.

What To Do About Your Brain-Injured, Dyslexic, Educable, Hyperactive, Learning Disabled, Speech Delayed, Attention Deficit Disordered, Pervasively Developmentally Delayed, Socially Frustrated, Very Bright Child

The greatest common denominator found in brain-injured children is poor vision. Virtually every severely and profoundly brain-injured child has a severe to profound visual problem. In fact, it is very rare to see a brain-injured child, regardless of the severity of injury, who does not have a significant visual problem. Even a modest visual problem can cause a gigantic problem in life since it may prevent a child from being able to read or write.

One of the greatest frustrations in life must surely be seeing a problem, knowing how to solve the problem, and not being able to do anything about it.

This is the very dilemma faced by the staff of The Institutes and parents on the Intensive Treatment Program when they have a nephew or a niece or a cousin with a neurological problem. It is the dilemma faced by a wise teacher when she sees a little student who she knows has a neurological problem but she herself cannot solve it.