A new study on the relationship between children with behavioural disorders and their teachers has shown that teachers’ lack of scientific knowledge of the illnesses has resulted in them abusing affected children, and thereby risking the children’s development.

“It is horrible the attitude that they (teachers) have to the children,” said psychologist Dr Pearnel Bell, who conducted the study which has not yet been published.

“They don’t fully understand what they (the disorders) are and they don’t treat these children well at all.”

The study, said Dr Bell, showed that the teachers’ attitude was generally negative toward the children. “Most of them (teachers) didn’t know it was a mental illness. Most of them didn’t have knowledge of it.”

Dr Bell conducted the research into Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) over a year among 20 teachers from 10 schools in western Jamaica.

The study is entitled Jamaican Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Children with ODD, CD or ADHD.

“Teachers’ experiences with these students were generally described as negative experiences of disruption of and resistance to the learning experience,” said Dr Bell, quoting from her study. “Teachers’ knowledge of all three disorders was based on their experience with the students rather than on psycho education.”

The study found that teachers who deal with behavioural disordered children were frustrated, annoyed, irritated and angry at the students, themselves, as well as with the school system, Bell said.

“Teachers described more intense feelings toward ODD and CD students, and teachers felt ill-equipped and ill-prepared to deal with these students,” the psychologist said.

Bell said that the teachers’ response to disruptive students was “characterised by an absence of any co-ordinated plans or strategies based on research or knowledge about the problem”. The result, she noted, was that teachers’ general reaction to such students was “to shout, yell, give a cold stare, give time-out, send to the guidance office, call in parents, use corporal punishment, and ignore or abandon students”.

The abandonment, she said, is perhaps the worst thing that they could do.

Another interesting finding from the study, she said, was that teachers had “more intense reactions” toward ODD and CD students than to students with ADHD. The reason for this, Bell noted, was that ODD and CD children tend to display more extreme disruptive behaviours than do children with ADHD.

“The students who have oppositional defiant disorder are usually very defiant,” said Bell. “They could actually get into cussing with teachers. They also tend to annoy people (more), blame others for their mistakes, and are spiteful and vindictive. For the conduct disorder, that is another ball game where they bully others, initiate fights and use weapons, are cruel to people, destroy property and steal. They also violate school rules and are deceitful.”

Bell explained that children with ADHD are basically impulsive, hyperactive and inattentive. “They tend to be a little annoying, but you can see the difference (between them and children with) ODD and CD,” she said.

Against this background, Bell has called for the education of teachers on the range of behavioural disorders, noting that there was no substituting the benefits that the information would bring to them and to those attention deficit students for whose education the teachers have responsibility.

“Ministry of Education and school personnel should organise islandwide psycho-educational workshops geared toward helping teachers understand disruptive behaviour disorders and ADHD,” she said. “Teachers’ colleges throughout Jamaica should include in their curricula courses in behaviour management, with specific emphasis on children with behavioural disorders and ADHD.”

Added Bell: “Schools throughout Jamaica must employ social workers and psychologists to carry out assessment of children and to ensure that appropriate intervention is undertaken.”

The education ministry, she said, must provide the necessary resources to help teachers cope with disruptive students. She also recommended the employment of special educators to help students cope with their disorders.

Jasper Lawrence, acting chief education officer with the education ministry, said that he was not opposed to any suggestion from the psychologist. In fact, he said that the ministry had been working to safeguard the education and overall well-being of students with special needs – among them those with behavioural disorders.

“We have recognised that there are special needs children,” said Lawrence. “Even as I speak right now, we have, well advanced, a special needs policy that is being developed and which will not look at only those like ADHD but other (special needs).”

One of the mandates of the education transformation team, he said, particularly the work team that is dealing with teaching and curriculum, is to look at the whole matter of special needs children to ensure that there are provisions for them. “This is nothing that is taking us by surprise. It is something that we have long been looking at,” said Lawrence.

Beyond that, he said that teachers’ colleges were training student teachers to deal with special needs children.

“I think the teacher training curriculum is such that teachers have to do courses that deal with special education,” said Lawrence. “For a number of years now, Mico Teachers’ College, in conjunction with the University of the West Indies, has been offering a degree in Special Education.”

However, Lawrence said people should recognise that treating children with special needs was a task that could not be tackled overnight.

“These issues cannot be addressed as a one-off, so we are always responding to the new challenges and adjusting our programmes and provisions consistent with cutting-edge techniques that are practised in terms of special needs youngsters,” said Lawrence. “(This is so while) making sure to mainstream them as much as is possible.”

Dr Bell feels as well that parents must also learn about behavioural disorders, since they have a most crucial role to play in their children’s lives.

“Parents ought to be educated about their children’s disorders and about how they can effectively help to maximise their children’s learning potential,” she said.

Anything short of these recommendations, she argued, would be unacceptable.

“If the recommendations are implemented, they could help to provide teachers with a better understanding of and effective strategies to help disruptive children and ADHD,” she said. “It also would help disruptive children maximise their learning potential. This could considerably reduce the number of these children who just pass through the school system and become a menace to Jamaican society.”

Bell also suggested a number of things that teachers could do to help students who they suspect or know have ODD, CD or ADHD.

“Teachers can educate themselves about ADHD and collaborate with parents to monitor behaviour at home and school,” she said.

Beyond that, the psychologist, who is actively involved in a programme to correct the disorder at her private practice in Montego Bay, said that there were a number of other things that could be done. They include:

. giving students with ADHD a seat at the front of the class and helping them to remember assignments by giving them written cues;

. having a system of rewards in place, which determine what behaviours to reward and those to ignore;

. teaching students how to take good notes and helping to organise students by using folders for different subjects;

. developing a secret signal to help refocus students; and

. allowing extra time for exams.

In addition, Bell said that educators may also divide work into smaller tasks while allowing frequent breaks for students to move around.

“Many teachers believe that CD, ODD and ADHD students pass through the school system without reaching their potential and that they end up being non-productive citizens,” Bell said. “A longitudinal study investigating the lives of students diagnosed with CD, ODD and ADHD should be undertaken. This study would be qualitative in nature and should take an in-depth look at these children’s experience in the school system and their current status in Jamaican society.”

williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com