Understanding the Ambiguity of 'At Risk' Label

588 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Adhd theories psychology

The label “at risk” is very ambiguous and may mean different things for different people. The at risk concept lies on a continuum from low to high and involves many interacting dimensions which ultimately increase one’s probability of having problems in school. In this way being at risk looks different for different people and while some may seemingly be okay, others may clearly be struggling or display subtle signs that something is indeed wrong. Being at risk suggests that there are individual factors, environmental factors, or a combination of both, imparting difficulty on one’s ability to cope with life. It is important to note that being at risk is not a permanent label because environmental factors may not be constant, and so neither will its impact on an individual. In addition to this, intervention may help individuals like Owen embody some resiliency. …show more content…

Though it may be easy to solely focus on one or the other, human behavior is complex and it is hard to separate the two and their impacts from each other. In regards to Owen and his at risk status, the psychoeducational assessment revealed many individual factors which may impact his academic performance and social relationships. Not only is he diagnosed with ADHD, but he also has difficulties with reading, spelling and processing verbal information. Despite this, his environmental factors are ignored if the psychoeducational assessment is the sole focus. Owen cannot control his family or the fact that he has been abused and neglected as a child or the fact that he moves from one foster home to another. As a result, drugs and alcohol entered his life. It was not until Owen’s environmental factors were addressed that he could better manage the internal factors impeding his

Show More
Related

  • Overview of ADHD

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, otherwise known as ADHD, is the most common psychiatric condition effecting 9.5% of school-aged children in the United States (intuniv, 2013). If the disorder goes untreated, it will cause more long-term side effects and difficulties for the individual as an adult. Adults who have this condition face several adversities in every day life, such as impulsive behavior, low self-esteem and poor work performance. People are not aware of the complications that come with ADHD in adults. Not knowing the symptoms of the disease can cause people to not be sympathetic when they are interacting with someone with disorder.

    Read More

  • Case Studies: Poverty: Case Study In Canada

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    The acute and chronic stress that these children raised in poverty experience leaves a devastating imprint on their lives. For Ayla, the chronic stress of her drug-using mother has a relentless influence on her experience in school. Her mother has poor management skills, and has almost lost custody to Ayla and her sister on two occasions. This kind of stress exerts a devastating influence on children 's physical, psychological, emotional, and cognitive functioning—areas that affect brain development, academic success, and social competence. Students subjected to such stress may lack crucial coping skills and experience significant behavioral and academic problems in school. As such, I can understand Ayla’s lack of interest in class discussions, and her tendency to sleep in class because the disadvantages she must be experiencing at home. The stress she experiences has an evident role in her low self-esteem and lack of dreams or aspirations for

    Read More

  • The Salem Witch Trials (ADHD)

    1760 Words  | 4 Pages

    As much as ADHD is a medical impediment for the patient, it can almost be considered a privilege for a certain group of people, because they are allowed to assert that a certain set of behaviors belong to their “nature". To cope with the disorder, schools often offer students suffering from ADHD a host of accommodations, including special classes and teaching assistants to help them absorb the material at the level of their peers. Legal provisions exist that allow students with ADHD to be excused from standardized testing [1] and to be given additional leniency and resources in the classroom. The individual students themselves start to pick up that they are naturally distinguished or special in some way, because they have been stigmatized from a very formative age. This kind of thinking, while warranted in some scope, does not allow the children themselves to reflect and think critically about how outcomes in their school and life can be changed. Furthermore, the idea that their behavior is an immutable characteristic of nature can have devastating effects on their self-esteem and ability to succeed later in

    Read More

  • Multidimensional Assessments In Social Work

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    In order to formulate a thorough assessment or intervention a social worker must first evaluate all the contributing factors that influence a client’s life. Problems faced by clients are rarely a result of a single factor or influence. Many individual, interpersonal and environmental factors must be evaluated to fully understand the cause of problems. Multidimensional assessments must be used to determine biological, psychological and environmental issues that contribute to problematic outcomes (Hepworth, Rooney, R., Rooney, G., & Strom-Gottfried, 2013.). Along with conducting multidimensional assessments, social workers must also evaluate stages of development, and assess how age can influence behaviors (2013). All contributing factors must

    Read More

  • The Existence of ADD and ADHD

    4006 Words  | 9 Pages

    While the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association) put forth a list of behaviors which predominantly fall in the category of ADD and/or ADHD, many researchers still maintain that there is no set way to diagnosis or develop a treatment program to these disorders which will be guaranteed to work. At the same time there is another set of researchers who maintain that these disorders actually do not exist at all. However, in the real world, parents and educators still continue to struggle with the task of coping with children who are hyperactive and who have very low attention span and whose behavior often interferes with schooling and family life. [Armstrong, 1997]

    Read More

  • Out of Order Disorder

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    It has been known since the beginning of time that not all people have the same brain function, social graces or self control. Children have daydreamed, been distracted, wiggled and have been routinely disruptive in classrooms. The condition dubbed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a new name for old behaviors. It has only been the last 40 or so years that these behaviors have become known as a disorder. They were previously accepted, on the most part, as common childhood behavior that would be outgrown. The controversy over the treatment, Ritalin, during the 1960s is when ADHD became well known (Conrad 563). Before that children and their families managed to survive without the labeling and medicating of children who didn’t fit perfectly into the mold. The brain function of a child with ADHD may be different, but who’s to say that difference needs to be changed. The person with ADHD still gets the job done, just differently, with a lot more effort and creativity. There are many who benefit from an ADHD diagnosis, the child is not always one of them.

    Read More

  • Symptoms of ADD/ADHD

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    You know that person; the one that can’t stay on subject, the one who will be talking then all of a sudden the conversation goes off in a totally different direction, like a squirrel searching for nuts that keeps dropping the one it is carrying because something else caught its eye. Chaotic, frazzled, impulsive, unorganized, daydreamer, procrastinator, inattentive, goof off and lazy are just a few descriptions of an adult that has Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD). At one time ADD/ADHD was thought of as just childhood complications that did not affect adults, but since there is no cure for ADD/ADHD, adults are affected also. Most adults that have ADD/ADHD were not diagnosed with it as children, because ADD/ADHD wasn’t recognized except by a very few people that were aware of it at the time (Smith and Segal, 2012). Instead as children they were labeled as lazy, trouble makers, day dreamers and other labels and they grew into adults with those same labels and tendencies. They may have learned to adjust during the teen years but as they became adults and responsibilities and demands on their time grew, the challenges of dealing with ADD/ADHD also grew. ADD/ADHD affects 4-5 percent of all adults, more than 11 million in the United States (Barkley). When not diagnosed and treated it can impact all areas of life including work, home and social relationships. With treatment adults, and children, with ADD/ADHD can learn to compensate and overcome the symptoms and challenges they face with ADD/ADHD on a daily basis to lead productive lives.

    Read More

  • The Overdiagnosis of ADHD in Children

    1421 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a college student, the amount of students on powerful meds for ADHD and ADD is shocking. It is a topic seen in every classroom and heard in many dialogues. Conversations can be overheard frequently about how easy meds are to get and how effortless it is to receive a diagnosis. However, while I know that a vast number of students are taking prescription drugs for ADHD, I don’t think that I ever realized the full extent to which this disorder was effecting America’s youth. It wasn’t until I spent my time volunteering as a paraprofessional in a fourth grade classroom that I felt I truly understood the weight that the number of ADHD diagnosis’s were having on our nation’s children. The supervising teacher I was working with told me that in her classroom of 22 children, six of them were on some sort of prescription medication for ADHD, and many parents that I spoke to tended to blow off the risk factors involved, remarking that the drugs improved their school performance. I was shocked at this figure, especially because after working with the children, even on the days that they forgot to take their medicine, I found that by using different methods of instruction, many of the children didn’t seem to have much less trouble focusing than the children who did not have ADHD. So when we were assigned this paper, I set out to disprove the myth that children who act out in school have must ADHD and need to be put on prescription drugs in order to do well in school.

    Read More

  • ADHD Websites

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    The CDC website is a government sponsored website that provides the public with details about various diseases and disorders. Specifically, it has a section on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which details everything from symptoms and diagnostics to managing ADHD in the educational environment. This section of the website is meant to give a sufficient amount of information for the general public looking into ADHD for the first time. The information is nowhere near a complete analysis of ADHD, but it sufficiently informs the reader. It also directs the reader to various other websites if they are in need of more information. The webpages contain many of the elements of pathos, logos, and ethos, which will be analyzed in the following paragraphs.

    Read More

  • ADHD And Criminality

    1545 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ictions that early intervention can reduce crime and actually divert children and teens from a path of criminal behavior (Nauert.) It is emphasized that when professionals, teachers, and other people involved with youth and young adults neglect to recognize and treat ADHD, there are likely to be detrimental consequences for both mental health and social outcomes. These results include the consumption and high costs of resources that must be used to respond to these behaviors. ADHD is perceived to be an easily treatable condition that is associated with readily accessible interventions which can be extremely successful in treating symptoms and behavior problems. Because of the failure to recognize and/or treat ADHD, however, the wide range of potentially negative effects of the behavioral problems it generates create significant obstacles for society and individuals.

    Read More

  • Disabilities in The Short Bus by Jonathan Mooney

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mooney embarks on this trip, starting in LA to his first destination at Arizona, to go beyond what is normal. Starting from his own personal history at Penny Camp Elementary. As Mooney travels he meets extraordinary people labeled abnormal, whom he soon felt weren’t that abnormal at all and were only suffering labels invented by man. During these meetings with people, Mooney explains that many terms society uses today were invented around the 1950s. This is especially odd because it is used so prominently and it was not discovered too long ago. The idea behind diagnosing ADHD is lack of attention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness; these characteristics alone to base diagnosis on is vague and leaves room for many mistakes, which have been evidently made countless of times. Mooney in his explanation of these labels shows that characteristics deemed inappropriate in society leads to the belief of mental incapabilities, which can only give those diagnosing the belief that anyone with these symptoms is broken. What is eventually understood is that, alth...

    Read More

  • Adolescent Substance Abuse: A Literature Review

    239 Words  | 1 Pages

    Meanwhile, ADHD can be linked to future risk with substance abuse. According to Caywood, Riggs, and Novins (2015), “Substance abuse problems represent a significant public mental health issue for adolescents in the United States” and most likely it is mental issues during childhood that causes future substance use disorders. However, substance use does not make the mental issues better but worse as “adolescent substance misuse increases the risk of developing co-occurring mental problems” which makes treatment more complex in the end. The authors reported the findings from the National Comorbidity Replication – Adolescent Supplement, which involved adolescents from the age of 13 to 18, stating that near 80 percent of adolescents had “consumed

    Read More

  • ADHD in adults and children

    1793 Words  | 4 Pages

    Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most frequently diagnosed neurobehavioral disorder in children and young adults (Schilling, Walsh & Yun, 2011). Though there is a breadth of research on the topic, the fact that individuals with ADHD have to overcome many difficulties throughout their life, like failing to inhibit inappropriate actions that can otherwise lead to antisocial behavior, severe injuries and in many cases end with imprisonment with 40-70% of detainees being diagnosed with ADHD (Rösler et al. 2004, as cited by Schilling, Walsh & Yun, 2011), suggests that there is still necessity to discuss the dominant explanations for this disability. The following essay is going to briefly state the definition of ADHD according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it will then outline and evaluate the present genetic and evolutionary position on ADHD.

    Read More

  • ADD and ADHD

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    ADD and ADHD have had a dramatic rate of increase since it was first “discovered” 25 years ago. “This “epidemic” has grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between five and seven million today.” (Baughman) ADD and ADHD have become popular for many reasons. In today’s American culture and fast paced society it is likely that both parents will work. This breaks down the traditional family where only one parent would work and the other would stay home and take care of the children. This leads to a tremendous breakdown in parental supervision and involvement in their children’s academics. This lack of involvement by parents puts the burden onto the school system for a child’s lack of achievement. When a child academically performs poorly or has a problem at school, parents want corrective action to be taken no matter what the cost, as long as, it is a fast remedy with little involvement by the parent. In some cases, when a child is labeled with ADD or ADHD because he/she is doing poorly in school, the corrective action that needs to be taken is for the parent to simply spend more time with their children and tutor them in academic areas they’ re lacking in.” Children feel the loss, (quality time spent with parents) and they take action for attention. They misbehave, they cry, they become defiant, aggressive. The parents seek answers and relief to the family turmoil. The school, which is also experiencing the child’s defiance and aggression, seeks relief. Enter the school psychologist who provides the convenient answer. The chil...

    Read More

  • The Effects of Child Abuse on a Child´s Education

    1281 Words  | 3 Pages

    Child abuse has become a chronic and common issue in the country today. In the United States of America, an estimated three million children are victims of abuse every year. Whether the abuse is physical, emotional, sexual, or neglect, the scars can be deep and can have a negative effect on a child’s education. According to academic research preformed at Brown University in April 1996, it was noted that abused children have a harder time maintaining good grades in school due to their stressful home lives, which leads to a lack of focus in the classroom. These issues are severely hurting the education of many children which damages their conscious development. Unstable households are the number one cause of children not performing at the level of proficiency in the classroom. (Family Mobility Helps) There are four different types of abuse, but the effects are similar, which is physical, or emotional harm placed upon the child. There are certain types of abuse that are often harder to identify. Neglect is the most common form of child abuse. Family members and caregivers are the abusers in most cases. Research has shown there are three major reasons why abuses children suffer academically. The reasons are withdrawal, poor communication/social skills, and behavioral problems. Child abuse does not only hurt a child’s education, but can lead to deaths. Therefore prevention is the key to the success of a child’s future. (Rynders)

    Read More

More about Understanding the Ambiguity of 'At Risk' Label

Open Document