It has long been contended that children with behavior problems were sure to have problems in the higher grades. However two new studies, the findings of which are being published today in different in the journal, 'Developmental Psychology' and 'The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences', suggest otherwise.
In one study it was found that children who are disruptive in the kindergarten do equally well as the other children by the time they are in elementary school. The second study, while observing the children's reading and math skills, emotional stability and concentration, or attention observed that although the brains of children with ADHD develop a little later they do ultimately develop normally. The study depended to a great extent on teacher reports of the progress made by the children.
Specialists believe that these findings could change the way those involved with parenting and with education handle unruly or emotionally withdrawn children in the first years of their schooling. They could also start off a complete re examination of the reasons for their disturbing behavior.
Director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, Sharon Landesman Ramey who did not have any thing to do with the studies, said, “I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to the inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms.”
In the first study, the researchers studied the intellectual and social development of more than 16,000 children in six large child-development studies performed since 1970. Factors such as family structure and family income were taken into consideration They discovered that there was no comparison between troublesome behavior in kindergarten and academic achievements by the time the children passed out from elementary school.
Children who misbehaved in Kindergarten were doing as well in Math and reading as the other children in the fifth grade.
A connection was found however between scores on math tests at ages 5 or 6 and academic success in fifth grade. This applied to children of both sexes and from diverse financial backgrounds.
The study authors therefore recommended developing more effective math training.
Other investigators warned however that these findings did not mean that emotional problems were unimportant or upsetting to academic success in school.
In the second study, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health and McGill University, used imaging techniques to compare the brain of two groups of children: the first group of 223 children between 6 and 16, suffering from attention deficit disorder, and the other 223 children of the same age group, not. They found that the brains of children with ADHD developed normally albeit more slowly in certain areas than the brains of children free of it.
These findings suggested that looking for a clear abnormality or flaw was the wrong tactic where attention problems were concerned.
Most disruptive children (who make up 3 percent to 5 percent of school-age children of school going children) are diagnosed as having A.D.H.D. rather than any other ailment and are prescribed medications to improve their attention powers.
Greg J. Duncan, lead author, and professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University had this to say: “The findings have been very controversial among developmental psychologists who have seen the paper,” but also remarked,
“For kindergarten, it appears teachers are able to work around these behavior problems in a way that enables kids to learn just as much as other kids with equal levels of ability,”
It has long been contended that children with behavior problems were sure to have problems in the higher grades. However two new studies, the findings of which are being published today in different in the journal, 'Developmental Psychology' and 'The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences', suggest otherwise.
In one study it was found that children who are disruptive in the kindergarten do equally well as the other children by the time they are in elementary school. The second study, while observing the children's reading and math skills, emotional stability and concentration, or attention observed that although the brains of children with ADHD develop a little later they do ultimately develop normally. The study depended to a great extent on teacher reports of the progress made by the children.
Specialists believe that these findings could change the way those involved with parenting and with education handle unruly or emotionally withdrawn children in the first years of their schooling. They could also start off a complete re examination of the reasons for their disturbing behavior.
Director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, Sharon Landesman Ramey who did not have any thing to do with the studies, said, “I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to the inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms.”
In the first study, the researchers studied the intellectual and social development of more than 16,000 children in six large child-development studies performed since 1970. Factors such as family structure and family income were taken into consideration They discovered that there was no comparison between troublesome behavior in kindergarten and academic achievements by the time the children passed out from elementary school.
Children who misbehaved in Kindergarten were doing as well in Math and reading as the other children in the fifth grade.
A connection was found however between scores on math tests at ages 5 or 6 and academic success in fifth grade. This applied to children of both sexes and from diverse financial backgrounds.
The study authors therefore recommended developing more effective math training.
Other investigators warned however that these findings did not mean that emotional problems were unimportant or upsetting to academic success in school.
In the second study, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health and McGill University, used imaging techniques to compare the brain of two groups of children: the first group of 223 children between 6 and 16, suffering from attention deficit disorder, and the other 223 children of the same age group, not. They found that the brains of children with ADHD developed normally albeit more slowly in certain areas than the brains of children free of it.
These findings suggested that looking for a clear abnormality or flaw was the wrong tactic where attention problems were concerned.
Most disruptive children (who make up 3 percent to 5 percent of school-age children of school going children) are diagnosed as having A.D.H.D. rather than any other ailment and are prescribed medications to improve their attention powers.
Greg J. Duncan, lead author, and professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University had this to say: “The findings have been very controversial among developmental psychologists who have seen the paper,” but also remarked,
“For kindergarten, it appears teachers are able to work around these behavior problems in a way that enables kids to learn just as much as other kids with equal levels of ability,”
In any case around 75% of children with ADHD outgrow the problem by early adulthood, says, a psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Philip Shaw.
But, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, Ross Thompson argued that we were not to conclude from the results that programs to guide preschoolers' emotional development were not beneficial as a result of these findings.
“That would be a double whammy for really difficult kids,” he said, “to have no help managing their behavior and then — wham! — to get labeled as problem kids as soon as they enter school.”
