PEDIATRICS Vol. 58 No. 3 September 1976, pp. 392-393
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On Failing in School

John H. Menkes M.D.1

1 University of California at Los Angeles and the Neurology Neurochemistry Laboratory, Brentwood Veterans Administration Hospital, Los Angeles, California

As our society becomes increasingly complex, higher premiums attend success and, as an inevitable corollary, the adverse impact of failure has a greater effect. For the school-aged child, success or failure in mastering educational basics usually determines his future career, his role in society, and, all too often, his personal esteem. It is little wonder, therefore, that school failure represents a major catastrophe affecting both the child and his family. Although there is considerable evidence that learning can improve when the school environment is rectified to match individual needs, in the majority of cases, both parents and schools have turned to the pediatrician for assistance in handling the slow or defective learner. Often the pediatrician shoulders this burden willingly, and, in fact, is probably the most interested and adept person available. But what a confused and confusing field learning disorders are!

There are almost as many approaches to the evaluation and treatment of school failure as there are physicians involved in this area. The literature, while extensive, is of little help, and even such obvious questions as when to perform electroencephalography or what role drug therapy plays yield the most divergent replies.

In this symposium, the Editors of Pediatrics have asked four individuals, each an authority in the area of learning disorders, to describe their management of the child with school failure. As a consequence of the diversity of their professional backgrounds and divergent characteristics of the patient population, each of the authors stresses a different aspect.

For instance, it is clear from the paper of Drs. Hogan and Ryan that, in Mississippi, school problems do not plague physicians or educators to the extent that they do in California.




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L. J. Meltzer, M. D. Levine, W. Karniski, J. S. Palfrey, and S. Clarke
An Analysis of the Learning Styles of Adolescent Delinquents
J Learn Disabil, December 1, 1984; 17(10): 600 - 608.
[Abstract] [PDF]