AUTISM, ADHD, DYSLEXIA:
THE IMPORTANCE OF DIAGNOSING LEARNING DISORDERS A protest resounds in many schools: “Please stop stigmatizing children with so many diagnoses! That only serves to medicalize and sell more medicines.” It is a protest expressed by some parents, indeed, but
In just a few years, the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia or the high-performance autism spectrum, among other neurodevelopmental disorders, has increased. And a quite logical question arises: are we pathologizing normality? Are we victims of a mercantilist strategy?
A big step for equal opportunities
The answer is no. There will always be misdiagnoses or misdiagnoses, but overall we are seeing a big step forward. Perhaps the best way to perceive it is to see what happens when we deny the evidence!
Take this real case as an example. Kindergarten boy, three years old. A special education teacher perceives behavior of social inhibition: she does not look into the eyes, she does not play symbolic games, she does not point her finger at toys… The teacher believes that she may have an autistic disorder, but the rest of her colleagues do not consent to a specialized evaluation . “He is too young to carry that stigma,” she says.
Result: loss of time to develop effective educational strategies with scientific evidence. It is also a missed opportunity to request a support professional for the next course, help to which that child was entitled.
This case raises another no less reflection: a teacher trained in learning disorders may be capable of suspecting this and other problems. We can leave the definitive diagnosis to the pediatrician or the clinical psychologist, but perhaps over the years that professor has a very good semiological perspective (especially if he educates her) and less experienced colleagues should pay attention to him.
Teachers can perform a very important task, since an early diagnosis improves the prognosis and social inclusion of almost all those affected. The plasticity of the brain has some “windows” of age that we must take advantage of.
This case has the virtue of indicating the answer to the question with which we began the article: it is not that there are more children with ADHD, dyslexia or autism, simply now we pay more attention to them and we know how to diagnose it more rigorously.