Adjustment reaction to school:

Adjustment disorder is normally a time limited condition with manifestation arriving almost
immediately after the appearance of pressure causing events and resolving within six months of
the elimination of the stressors.

Definition:
An adjustment disorder is an abnormal, debilitating and excessive reaction usually lasting less
than six months to a life stress such as starting school, experiencing grief.

Defense Mechanisms:
There are unconscious psychological strategies brought into play by various entities to cope
with reality and maintain self image.
● Rationalism
● Projection
● Introjection
● Identification
● Isolation
● Sublimation
● Displacement
● Repression
● Suppression
● Conversion
● Regression
● Reaction formation
● Simple denile
● Fantacy

Causes:
a) Strange feeling
b) Unfamiliarity
c) Change in environment

Sub groups of adjustment disorder:

1. Adjustment disorder with depressed mood
This is characterized by the feelings of sadness or hopelessness of varying degrees.
2. Adjustment disorder with Anxiety
It typically includes agitation or nervous behaviour or obsessive worrying
3. Adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood
4. Adjustment disorder with disturbance of conduct
5. Adjustment disorder with mixed disturbance of emotions and conduct
6. Unspecified adjustment disorder
Symptoms:
1) Agitation
2) Conduct disturbance
3) Depression
4) Palpitations
5) Physical complaints
6) Trembling or twitching

Diagnosis:
The child being evaluated for adjustment disorder needs to meet the following criteria in order to
confirm the diagnosis.
1) Has had a psychological evaluation
2) The symptoms clearly follow a stressor
3) Shows the symptoms that appear disproportionate to the stress-full event
4) Does not appear to be suffering from any other underlying mental or physical illness.

Treatment:
Treatment depends upon the age and overall health of the child as well as the severity of the
symptoms. It includes…
a) Behaviour therapy
b) Individual psycho therapy
c) Family therapy
d) Self-help therapy

Prognosis:
Adjustment disorders usually get better quickly without any remaining symptoms.

Prevention:
There is no known way to prevent this disorder. String support from friends and family can help.

LEARNING DISABILITIES
Learning disabilities (LD) is a term that refers to a varied group of disorders that is manifested
as significant difficulties in the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding, or use of
verbal or nonverbal information. The term does not include children who have learning problems
which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicaps of mental retardation,
emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage. Learning
disabilities are distinct from global intellectual disabilities. Learning disabilities result from
impairments in one or more processes related to perceiving, thinking, remembering, or learning.
This may interfere with the acquisition and use of one or more of the following:
● Oral language (e.g., listening, speaking, understanding)
● Reading (e.g., decoding, phonetic knowledge, word recognition, comprehension).
● Written language (e.g., spelling and written expression).
 ● Mathematics (e.g., computation, problem solving).
Learning disabilities may also involve difficulties with organizational skills, social perception,
social interaction and perspective taking. Learning disabilities are life-long. Learning disabilities
are due to genetic and/or neurological factors or injury that alters brain function in a manner that
affects one or more processes relate to learning.

Types of Learning Disorders:

Reading Disorder (Dyslexia)
It is generally characterized by difficulties with the alphabet, word recognition, decoding,
spelling, and comprehension.

Symptoms Include Difficulty in

● Naming, learning the sequence of or printing the alphabet.
● Memorizing non-phonetic words.
● Reading words that cannot be translated into a mental picture (and, a, the, etc).
● Sound/symbol correspondence, or sequencing of letters to create a word.
● Reading aloud without repeated mistakes and pauses.
● Comprehending reading material, grasp of vocabulary.
● Reading numbers and confusing math symbols.
● Organizing what he or she wants to say verbally, or not being able to think of word
needed.
● Retelling a story in sequence of events.
● Finding a word in the dictionary, naming the days of the week and months of the year.
● Understanding inferences, jokes or sarcasm.

Writing Disorder(Dysgraphia)
It involves the physical act of writing or the mental activity of comprehending and synthesizing
information.

Symptoms
● Inconsistent and sometimes illegible writing; e.g., mixing print and cursive, upper and
lower case, irregular sizes, shaped or slant of letters.
● Inconsistent positioning on the page, with respect to lines and margins.
● Unfinished words or letters, omitted words and many spelling mistakes.
● Fine motor difficulty such as inability to reproduce letters or remembering motor patterns.
● Inconsistent speed in writing, either extremely laboured or quick.
● Writing that does not communicate at the same level as the student’s other language
skills.
● Odd grip, unusual wrist, body or paper position.
● Pain or muscle spasms while writing.
● Talking to self while writing, or carefully watching the hand while writing.
● Refusal, reluctance or extreme stress when asked to complete a written task.
Arithmetic Disorder (Dyscalculia)
It is the difficulty in learning or comprehending mathematics. It affects a person’s ability to
understand and manipulate numbers or understand numbers themselves.

Symptoms Include Difficulty in

● Organizing problems on the page, keeping numbers lined up.
● Following through on multiple step calculations, such as long division.
● Transposing numbers accurately on paper or on to a calculator, such as turning 56into
65.
● Distinguishing right from left.
● Using the mathematical calculation signs, confusing basic operations and facts.
● Applying logic but not accurately completing calculations.
● Understanding and solving word problems.
● Being hesitant, refusing or experiencing anxiety when asked to engage with
mathematical concepts.
● Remembering and applying mathematical functions.

Spelling Disorders (Dysorthographia)

This is difficulty with spelling due to weak awareness or memory of language structures and
letters in words.

Symptoms
● Arbitrary misspellings such as addition, omission, and or substitution of letters in words.
● Reversal of vowels and/or syllables.
● Slow, hesitant or poor written expression.
● Errors in conjugation and grammar.
● Phonetic spelling of non-phonetic words.
● Misunderstanding the correspondence between sounds and letters.

Motor Skills Disorders (Dyspraxia)

This refers to problems with movement and coordination whether it is with fine motor skills
(cutting, writing) or gross motor skills (running, jumping). This disability includes problems with
physical abilities that require hand-eye coordination, like holding a pencil or buttoning a shirt.

Auditory Processing Disorder

This disorder affects the way the brain processes or interprets what it hears although the
student might have adequate hearing.

Symptoms include difficulty in:

● Listening, particularly where there is background noise or when attention is divided.
● Processing information if the speaker is speaking quickly.
● Understanding what is said.
● Recalling what they have heard or following a sequence of directions.
 ● Recognizing and interpreting distinct sounds or attributing meaning to sounds in words.

Visual Processing Disorder

A visual perception disorder involves difficulty making sense of what is seen, although vision is
intact. These children have difficulty in following functions:
● Recalling and using visual information, e.g., remembering the order or meaning of
symbols, words or pictures.
● Differentiating colors, letters, or numbers that are similar.
● Recognizing objects or parts of an object.
● Distinguishing a particular shape from its background and/or understanding how objects
are positioned in relation to one another.
● Perceiving distances, depth, or movement.
● Accurately identifying information from books, pictures, charts, graphs, and maps.

Sensory Integration Disorder

Sensory integration disorder is associated with the ability to integrate information from the
body’s sensory systems (visual input, auditory input, olfactory input, taste, tactile input,
vestibular input (balance/movement), and proprioceptive input (position).

Organizational Learning Disorder

Organizational learning disorder includes difficulties in handling various stimuli or information at
one time, thinking in an orderly and logical way, distinguishing direction, or organizing materials
and time.

Management of Learning Disorders

Dyslexia
● Special teaching strategies: Helping a child learn through multisensory experiences
and providing immediate feedback to strengthen a child’s ability to recognize words.
● Classroom modifications: Providing preferential seating near the teacher, giving extra
time to finish tasks and providing taped tests that allow the child to hear the questions
instead of reading them. Using multisensory teaching methods through instructions is
necessary.
● Use of technology: Children with dyslexia may benefit from listening to books on tape
or using word-processing programs with spell-check features.
Dysgraphia
● Teaching modification: Oral exams, provide a note-taker, and/or allow the child to
videotape reports instead of writing them, providing notes, outlines, and preprintes study
sheets.
● Use of technology: Use of word-processing programs or an audio recorder instead of
writing by hand.
Dyscalculia
● Visual techniques: Drawing pictures of word problems and showing the student the use
of color pencil to differentiate parts of problems.
 ● Use of memory aids: Rhymes and music are among the techniques that can be used to
help a child remember math concepts.
● Use of computers: A child with dyscalculia can use a computer for drills and practice.
Dyspraxia
● Quiet learning environment: Provide a quiet place for tests, silent reading, and other
tasks that require concentration
● Occupational therapy: Exercises that focus on the tasks of daily living can help a child
with poor coordination.
Other Treatments
● Social skill training, psychological counselling and behaviour management techniques.
● Treatment of ADHD.