Can today’s crisis in mental health be seen as the result of neoliberalism, the 2007/08 financial crisis and the austerity policies that followed?
Mental disorders affected one in seven students and were associated with being less connected and engaged at school, having lower attendance rates, and poorer academic outcomes than their peers.
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A national survey has shown Australian school students with a mental disorder can be almost three years behind in their studies by the time they sit their final NAPLAN test in year nine.
Does your daughter forget or misplace things all the time? Is she the classroom helper? Assessment scales for ADHD have tended to use data from boys so the signs of ADHD in girls may not be what you expect.
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Assessment scales for ADHD have been developed using mostly male research samples. As a result, the behaviours indicating ADHD in girls may not be what you expect.
Some conditions should be classified as normal in some people and don’t need treatment.
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Australian health-care organisations are urging action on treatments of people who don’t need them.
All parents have probably struggled to get their kids to sleep at some point. This is even more difficult when a child has ADHD.
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Children with ADHD are much more likely than other kids to struggle getting to sleep, and staying asleep. Up to 73% of Australian parents report their child with ADHD has problems sleeping.
Balancing and doing tricks requires visual attention.
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Fidget items can have practical uses that help people calm down and stay focused. The problem with spinners may be that they require visual attention, which can distract users and others nearby.
This week, the prestigious journal The Lancet published a large study identifying objective differences in the brains of people diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Arguments that immature children are incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD are simplistic.
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Most of us learn to tie our shoelaces, dress ourselves and eat with cutlery with relative ease. But for children with dyspraxia, these tasks are incredibly difficult to master.
Auditory processing disorder is most common among primary school children.
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The term APD describes several disorders that result in a breakdown in the listening process. It is most common in primary school, affecting more than 5% of children.
Trying to focus on a task involves attention control – the ability to maintain focus on something over a period of time. What exactly is an attention span? Does it relate to intelligence? Can it change?
Tying funding to disability categories is putting pressure on schools and parents.
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By tying funding to disability categories, schools and parents are being put under pressure to seek a diagnosis for their child in order to get funding support.
The language used to talk about children with disabilities must be changed before attitudes will shift.
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Language can be used harmfully to construct categories of others. The words we use in describing children with disabilities need to be examined, challenged - and changed.
Your brain scan told me your mind would wander.
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Particular parts of an individual’s brain tend to work together on certain tasks. Researchers can look at these patterns of “functional connectivity” to predict traits – like the ability to pay attention.
Now, the importance of paying attention becomes clear.
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