Recently a mother told me how her daughter, despite getting an average of 90 or above in her school work, failed 5 out of 8 classes because she could not do quizzes or exams.
The school insisted that her daughter be tested for a possible learning disability. Her mother thought that her daughter’s problems were a result of a character trait because she had had similar issues when she was at school.
The assessment results indicated that her daughter had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). As a result, the girl was medicated and given extra time to do exams. The girl was determined to pass,worked hard, and graduated from her school. Naturally her mother is extremely proud of her!
This is a touching story and I am glad that it has a happy ending. But I have some concerns about what happened.
Firstly, the mother sees much of herself in her daughter. So there may be some kind of genetic connection between how the mother learned and how the daughter learned. Was this every accounted for?
Secondly, the pattern of being able to do good work (above 90 average!) in class and poor work on exams and pop quizzes is interesting. Perhaps the stress of the exam situation stopped her daughter from doing well; perhaps she had a language issue and it took her longer to process the words she read (see last post on Dyslexia); perhaps she had no idea how to take an exam in the first place.
I am glad that all is well with this girl but I wonder if there might have been a better way of helping her achieve her goals. I am not a great believer of medicating children unless it is absolutely necessary and my experience of children being assessed as having ADD has left me with serious concerns about the process.
The mother is proud of her daughter, I am proud of the mother for all the effort she went to in supporting her child’s education!
If you want more information about the pros and cons of different types of assessment watch out for some articles I will be posting on this subject in the next few days.
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