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what does OCD look like in the classroom
8/21/2016
From Child Mind Institute
By Jerry Bubrick, PhD How to recognize the signs a child is struggling, even if he is hiding his anxiety For children who have obsessive-compulsive disorder, functioning in school can be complicated and very difficult. And for a teacher, it can be easy to misread the symptoms of OCD as oppositional behavior on the child’s part, or as ADHD. But if teachers can recognize the behaviors associated with OCD, especially when a child is embarrassed and trying to hide his anxiety, they can help save him from unnecessary struggle, and clear the way for him to learn successfully. Here are the kinds of behaviors you might see in kids with OCD: Frequent requests to go to the bathroom: This could be to wash hands, if someone near the child was coughing or sneezing, or if she touched something that she perceives as contaminated. She could be washing items—pens, pencils, backpacks, books. It could also be an excuse to get out the classroom and just be away from everyone, and have some respite. Constant reassurance-seeking. This takes the form of repetitive questions. “Are you sure that’s the answer? Could you tell me again? Did you hear what I said?” Checking doors, windows, lockers, desks. Over and over and over again. Getting stuck on tasks. Sometimes kids with OCD will need to finish something to completion, or understand it to completion, before they’re able to move on. So if a child is working out what he did wrong on a math test, and the teacher says, “Now let’s open the textbook and start a new chapter,” he’s not going to be able to shift gears. Retracing: If a child leaves the classroom and worries that she left a pencil behind, she’ll go back into the classroom and go to her desk and check. If she had a bad thought as she went through the doorway, she might have to “fix it” by going back through the doorway again saying a good word. If she had a bad thought when she went down a flight of stairs on the way to class, she might need to go back up that same stairway at the end of the period, even if it means being late to her next class. Obsessive erasing: A child could be erasing a lot because the letters have to look perfect. Or he could have used a word that disturbs him. For example, if he has a fear of vomiting and he’s written the word vomit, he might not be able to stand seeing that word, so he erases it. Kids start having erasers worn down to the metal. Teachers start to see holes in the paper. Words will be drawn over on the back of the page. A lot of different areas of writing become problematic. From Education Weekly
By Christina A. Samuels Published Online: December 7, 2015 Deborah Lynam, a founding member of Decoding Dyslexia, seen with her son Hudson, 11, at their home in Haddon Heights, N.J., has helped build the parent-driven advocacy group into a 50-state movement that presses its concerns nationally. —Charles Mostoller for Education Week Four years ago, during a train ride to a luncheon sponsored by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, a group of New Jersey parents found they shared the same frustrating story: Their children were struggling to learn to read. But they felt the schools' reading interventions—if such supports were even offered to their children—were unfocused efforts overseen by educators without specific training in how to address the problem. That informal connection among parents has since grown into an influential movement, Decoding Dyslexia. Harnessing the power of social media, the grassroots group now has a presence in all 50 states, as well as sympathetic ears among federal and state lawmakers and administrators in the U.S. Department of Education. "The influx of energy that the parents have invested in this has really started to raise the tide for a lot of other organizations," said Deborah Lynam, one of the original New Jersey parents and among the more visible faces of Decoding Dyslexia. "The parents have just opened the door on something."' Kids who seem oppositional are often severely anxious Caroline Miller A 10-year-old boy named James has an outburst in school. Upset by something a classmate says to him, he pushes the other boy, and a shoving-match ensues. When the teacher steps in to break it up, James goes ballistic, throwing papers and books around the classroom and bolting out of the room and down the hall. He is finally contained in the vice principal’s office, where staff members try to calm him down. Instead, he kicks the vice principal in a frenzied effort to escape. The staff calls 911, and James ends up in the Emergency Room.
To the uninitiated, James looks like a boy with serious anger issues. It’s not the first time he’s flown out of control. The school insists that his parents pick him up and take him home for lunch every day because he’s been banned from the cafeteria. Unrecognized anxiety But what’s really going on? “It turns out, after an evaluation, that he is off the charts for social anxiety,” reports Dr. Jerry Bubrick, director of the Anxiety & Mood Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute. “He can’t tolerate any—even constructive—criticism. He just will shut down altogether. James is terrified of being embarrassed, so when a boy says something that makes him uncomfortable, he has no skills to deal with it, and he freaks out. Flight or fight.” From Beyond BookSmart
By Brittany Wadbrook June 27, 2016 Are you worried that your child tends toward perfectionism? As coaches, we often encounter students with perfectionistic mindsets in combination with other Executive Function challenges. When students focus on producing “perfect” work, it can not only be counterproductive but research suggests it can even prove harmful. The good news is that the right kind of support can help ensure that such mindsets won't derail your child. What is Perfectionism? Perfectionism is not simply when a student strives for excellence. In a New York Times magazine article, Melissa Dahl quotes psychologist Thomas S. Greenspoon, explaining that “perfectionistic people typically believe that they can never be good enough, that mistakes are signs of personal flaws, and that the only route to acceptability as a person is to be perfect.” That’s a lot of pressure for a student to handle. How Does Perfectionism in Students Manifest? Parents want to see their children achieve good results for their efforts — but when a child is mired in perfectionism, it can lead to hours wasted in ineffective pursuit of the perfect essay, report, or problem set — with very little on paper to show for all that effort. And frequently, there are plenty of tears and meltdowns in the process, as well. It’s easy to imagine the frustration involved in attempting to produce error-free assignments. After all, mistakes are a natural and expected part of the learning process! |
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