Doctors say weak students get too much therapy

[FarCenter]

More than half of Swiss schoolchildren are undergoing some sort of therapy in an effort to solve learning problems.
That is far too many, according to the authors of a recently-published book on children with learning difficulties. They say that parents, teachers and doctors have unrealistic expectations of children.

Solothurn paediatrician Thomas Baumann and Zug paediatrician and youth psychiatrist Romedius Alber have written a 285-page book aimed at health professionals. Their goal is to reduce the numbers of children in therapy that might well be unnecessary.

Baumann told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper parents today are too quick to rush their children into treatment when things aren’t going well at school.

“The child has learning difficulties? Then we need a diagnosis, some therapy - this has to be corrected immediately” – is how he summarises the current attitude.
...
Instead, the doctor-author team recommends that parents send their children to therapists that concentrate on boosting strengths rather than repairing defects.

“Children are usually happy to go to these therapists… these are also the ones who do more good than harm,” Alber said.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Doctors_say_weak_students_get_too_much_therapy.html?cid=31523552

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. What an ass.

Blame the kids, not the system.

Screw THAT.

[pnwmom]

7. Huh? The article is blaming the system, not the kids, IMHO.

In any normal system, half the kids would not need "therapy."

“Children haven’t changed. It’s just that more deviations from the norm are being diagnosed as pathological. Today we have totally incorrect conceptions of what is normal and what is not,” Baumann said.

[TheWraith]

14. I read it mostly as blaming the expectations.

I.e. that all kids will automatically perform to the same level, at the same time, without regard to the fact that some kids excel, some don't, and some develop at different rates.

[pnwmom]

18. That's how I read it, too. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. It's complaining about parents who think their children are in need of therapy

To me, that seems like blaming the kids. The system isn't demanding the parents get therapy.

[pnwmom]

17. No, it's not blaming the KIDS. It's blaming all the adults, the professionals

and the parents with unrealistic expectations of normal kids. What is happening is that all kids below the median on practically any measure are being considered in need of treatment -- even though, by definition, there will ALWAYS be 50% of kids below median on any test!

“Children haven’t changed. It’s just that more deviations from the norm are being diagnosed as pathological. Today we have totally incorrect conceptions of what is normal and what is not,” Baumann said.

[lunatica]

2. Maybe there's something wrong with how things are taught.

Duh!

[PoliticAverse]

3. Who wants their child to be below average ? n/t

[LeftyMom]

4. Want it or no, half of them are.

For that matter, everybody's below average at something.

[Cid_B]

5. Doesn't surprise me.. every kid today seems to have a disorder or some sort...

ADD ADHD Hyper mega super duper ADHD etc.. etc..

Some kids are just dumb..

[pnwmom]

8. Nowhere close to half in U.S.

[Cid_B]

9. Dumb kids or kids diagnosed with sort of disorder?

[Initech]

11. Doctors are too quick to assign everyone with a disorder these days.

I'm sure it's Big Pharma's influence but it seems it happens more often than not these days. And I'm sure it's to prescribe the medication which these days isn't cheap. I know Sweden's supposed to be a socialist country but I'm sure stuff like that happens there too.

[Cid_B]

13. All the more reason to prescribe something...

if govt is footing the bill.

[pnwmom]

12. Neither. On any test that can be designed, you can find a median score

at which, by definition, half the students will score below. That doesn't make them either dumb or disabled.

Yes, some children do have actual learning and behavioral disabilities that need treatment. And yes, some children are generally slower to learn overall. (Or will always have difficulties in certain areas, even with a lot of help.)

But nowhere near half fall in these categories in the real world -- just in the testing world.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Um. No.

Nationally, 5% of all kids have ADD or ADHD and maybe 6 or 7% have a disability that interferes with learning.

That's far from "every child".

I also take exception to your characterizing some kids as just dumb. Actually, I'd rather say that about DUers. :)

[Cid_B]

19. It can be both... not mutually exclusive...

Dumb kids grow up into dumb posters...

[Drale]

6. Whether you have a learning disability or not

I think everyone could benefit from some therapy

[pnwmom]

10. I saw how this could happen with my first child,

who had already begun to read in kindergarten when her class was given a test to determine who might have reading problems. She was among those identified. It made no sense, because a different test six months earlier for "reading readiness" had her in the top 1 percent.

It turns out that there were two problems. One, the test wasn't properly administered (I don't remember the details of this, but the test wasn't conducted properly). But the second problemwas with the design of the test itself. When it was designed, the researcher divided the students into good readers and non-readers and checked the scores for each group. Sure enough, the median score of the readers was a couple points higher than the median of the non-readers -- so the test "worked."

They then decided that, when using this test to predict reading difficulties, the test would be scored as follows: everyone with a score at or above the median "reader" score would pass. Everyone with a score lower than the median would be considered at risk. HOWEVER, in the very first testing, when they measured readers vs. non-readers, fully half of the children ACTUALLY READING scored below the median -- of course, by definition, since that is what a median is.

In other words, it's ridiculous to take the median score of a bunch of good readers, and say that a score below that denotes possible reading problems -- but that's what they did. And do. The testing industry is a racket and children are its victims.

P.S. This same child of mine recently got her PhD without a single session of therapy.