Page 32 - CARING and SAFE SCHOOLS in ONTARIO

FIGURE 8. HOW DEFICITS IN THE THREE AREAS AFFECT STUDENT LEARNING AND BEHAVIOUR
Communication Disorders
Executive Function Deficits
Mental Health Problems
Early difficulties with oral language set
the stage for future academic challenges in the areas of reading comprehension, written language, listening, and relationships with peers and adults. For example:
• When students do not fully understand what is said to them, others can become frustrated with them, interaction and communication breaks down, and the stage is set for behaviour problems.
• When students cannot quickly and easily present their ideas, point of view, or interpretation, communication breaks down and the stage is set for frustration and behaviour problems.
• When comprehension and expressive problems interfere with learning, frustration increases, self-esteem suffers, and behaviour problems can also occur.
Students with language impairment often have difficulty with:
• developing the social language skills (e.g., turn-taking, conversational roles) needed to initiate and maintain social relationships;
• understanding non-verbal communication and reading social cues;
• using oral or written language for problem solving and self-advocacy in social situations;
• using oral communication in stressful situations rather than physical responses and acting-out behaviours.
Communication difficulties may contribute to frustration and low self-esteem and affect school success in the areas of listening, speaking, reading, writing, thinking, and learning.
(Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists, n.d.)
Students with executive function deficits have difficulty regulating their behaviour in two ways:
• using certain thinking skills
(e.g., related to planning and time management) and working memory to picture a goal, plot a path to that goal, determine what resources are needed along the way, and keep the goal in mind over time even when other events intervene to occupy their attention and take space in their memory;
• using other executive skills
(e.g., related to response inhibition, self-regulation of affect, and flexibility) to guide or modify their behaviour as they move along a path, think before they act, regulate their emotions in order to reach an objective, and, when necessary, revise their plans in the face of obstacles.
(Guare & Dawson, 2004)
Symptoms of mental health problems may vary considerably from individual to individual. Common features of mental health problems, and particularly of mental illness, include:
• difficulty with information processing;
• over-sensitivity to noise and other sensory stimuli;
• over-sensitivity or confusion in interpersonal relations.
In addition to symptoms of their illness, students may also be dealing with side-effects of medication they are taking to treat their illness. Side-effects can include:
• irritability;
• physical effects such as shaking
and dry mouth;
• confusion and disorganized
thinking;
• sleepiness;
• inability to concentrate.
These features can interact to produce significant learning problems.
(Canadian Mental Health Association, n.d.)
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