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Does your child have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

According to Jyoti, a physiologist who works with children with special needs, ADHD is a pattern; a combination of hyperactivity, impulsiveness and intention. A child could be suffering from all three symptoms or any one.

So, a child maybe inattentive in class simply because there are kids playing sports outside. This lone incident could not be considered for attention difficulties. Someone with ADHD will display bouts of inattentiveness. Any task that requires concentration, which they are unable to provide, resulting in incomplete or messy work, is a pointer. Impulsiveness can be observed in how they tend to blurt out answers before the question has been completed. Hyperactivity involves a lot of jumping around and uncontrollable nervous energy.

Telling Behavior

Jyoti adds that there are certain ages where you will expect the child to behave a certain way. But you know it’s ADHD when its severity is such that it is termed as developmentally inappropriate. For instance, with a three-year-old there is a certain amount of hyperactivity that one would expect. If you place him in an empty classroom or a stimulated environment, he is going to jump around. However, when a teacher walks into a classroom, one expects a certain sense of concern, which is absent in a child with ADHD.

So, how can one differentiate expected hyperactivity and ADHD?

Jyoti explains that a parent needs to report at least six months of hyperactivity or other symptoms before you can label the child with ADHD. The next step is to view the child for a significant period of time, say six months or more, and in more than one situation. Observe the child within his school environment, at home, in the park and other social setting to be able to draw any conclusions.

Treatment Options

According to Jyoti, proper counseling and medication should help ease the condition. When one attends to a child with ADHD, one should begin by counseling the parents. This is because to get to the child you have to go through the parents; any referrals are invariably going to come from the parent or the teacher. But, more importantly, when you meet the parents you realize how harrowed and helpless they feel.

Face facts: a hyperactive child will tend to get out of his seat more often. Jyoti suggests that one should set up a trampoline outside the class and in between lectures give the child ten minutes to jump on it and expend that energy. The teacher can also assign work that requires the child to move out of the classroom. This would keep him active while inculcating a sense of confidence and responsibility. This is important because constant labeling and criticism of the child will result in self-doubt.

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Enabling Parents

You begin by calming them down, letting them vent their frustrations brought on by criticism from family, friends and especially teachers. Teachers tend to complain about how unmanageable the child is or how no amount of reprimanding has any effect. In fact, teachers can sometimes be brutal in their punishment.Another area we have done extremely poorly is the right to education. The choice of a school system is not determined by the State when it comes to disabled children, the state and professionals are trying to determine what sort of education the children should receive, when it should be a prerogative of parents. The Act is comprehensive and framed in a rights paradigm when it comes to education, but what is happening on the ground is absolutely on a medical model.

Jyoti explains how counseling the parents is a very essential part of the treatment; there is a certain amount of change that they need to bring about at home, in the way they parent the child and discipline him. Invariably, parents use a physical approach to discipline the child to get him to behave in a socially acceptable manner.

She interjects that as you counsel the parents, you observe the child, talk to him and try to find out the things she values or find disturbing. This knowledge is used in creating a reward system to help the child concentrate better. For a child with attention difficulties, it is impossible for him to sit for a three-hour exam. You need to break up the task and this is where special education and educators come in. This does not mean that an ADHD child cannot be a part of a regular classroom but certain concessions are needed.

So, what causes ADHD?

It has been noticed that difficulties during pregnancy and birth can increase the risk to ADHD. If you face even minimum complications at birth such as prolonged labour, the least one can anticipate is attention difficulty. Moreover, ADHD hardly ever occurs by itself; the child could also be suffering from epilepsy or other such problems.

ADHD is a childhood disorder, in the sense that it becomes apparent in the childhood. It begins early and becomes apparent when the child comes to the first or the second grade. Traces of inattentiveness would continue but with certain technique and medication, one can help the child in coping with it. They can be comforted by the fact that it is not a hopeless situation; people with ADHD can lead normal lives. An informed parent is the only answer. Adults need to be aware that such a condition exists in order to identify it. An understanding and comforting environment helps soothe the child.

Source: Does your child have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? The Free Press Journal, Mumbai, 6 June 2006.

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The polio bug

The recrudescence of polio in Uttar Pradesh with 20 new cases reported within the first half of 2006 well before the peak transmission period of the microbe between July-August is an indication of how the campaign against the disease has floundered in recent months. The virus which virtually disabled the world over, owing to cheap and widely available vaccines, now remains a mountain threat in only two countries, India and Nigeria. Within the country, it is UP that is dragging the positive indicators against the battle for freedom from polio.

The bug has resurfaced in the endemically backward districts of Moradabad, Badayun, Farrukhabad and Bareily and notably among Muslims, thanks to the forced sterilization of the members of the community during the Emergency years 1975-77.

The worst year of polio in this decade was 2002 when 1,509 new cases were reported in the country out of which a staggering 1,197 were in U.P. Owing to a strong immunization drive in the subsequent years, the figure dropped drastically to less than 100 by 2004 and was down to 30 in 2005. But by the end of this year that is, after the monsoon months when the pathogen’s visitation occurs- the total can be expected to rise. This is a matter of deep regret particularly because the ruling parties, engrossed with vote-bank calculations and electoral benefits of reservation, hardly ever pause to consider disease eradication as one of their primary goals.

While the agencies involved in combating the scourge ought to be told that there is no ‘safe’ number of polio cases - the existence of even one is as well as 100. Government as well as NGOs must step up the awareness campaign particularly with those sections of the populace who, by defiantly standing against the immunization drive, end up giving greater credence to silly rumours than common sense. They ought to be told that polio does not discriminate in terms of faith and community leaders ought to come forward and tell people that there is no reason why 12% of the State’s population ought to report more than 50% of new polio cases year. Also, the rise in the number of polio cases- as well as other scourges that surface each year like malaria and typhoid- is easily attributable to poor governance and to repeated transfer of health and administrative officials, often for gross and casteist reasons. The UP Government must bring this cavalier approach to human health to an immediate end.

Source: Disabled Polio. The Pioneer, New Delhi, 6 June 2006.

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