A University of Maryland professor will work with a team of researchers to improve how mental health and learning disabilities are detected during adolescence.
Psychology professor Andres De Los Reyes will lead a team of researchers from Louisiana State University and the University of Minnesota, as well as graduate students from this university, to create new survey techniques and methodology for detection of these conditions in children during their middle school years.
While De Los Reyes began studying this issue more than 15 years ago, the team received a $1.4 million award in late September from the education department to develop a more standard methodology.
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Mental health and learning disabilities are often diagnosable and treatable, but they usually go unnoticed in children because of a lack of consistency in symptoms at both home and school, De Los Reyes said. Parents and teachers are sometimes at odds when explaining and describing children’s symptoms, and as a result, kids don’t always receive adequate treatment.
“We’re asking the same exact question to the parent, the student, the teachers, and you get different answers,” De Los Reyes said. “Most people think that if [the answers] are different, then the parent is right or the teacher is right, and nothing really happens.”
When parents see symptoms of mental health or learning issues but a teacher doesn’t, or vice versa, it can make it hard for schools to develop treatment plans, and the study could help bridge this gap, he said.
Though De Los Reyes said he hasn’t yet determined the methodology he will use in his research, he has previously tried to solve similar problems by creating surveys that evaluate student’s behavioral needs.
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The American Psychological Association estimates that 15 million children could currently be diagnosed with a mental health disorder, but only a little over a million will receive treatment.
The study will focus mostly on anxiety, depression, ADHD and ADD in children, as well as general attention issues and organizational issues that would typically lead to Individualized Education Programs.
Linda Dalton, a school counselor at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, said teachers and counselors are trained continuously to recognize signs of learning disabilities and special needs.
“Identifications starts early in elementary school and students in need are tested by school psychologists, special needs staff, and the appropriate steps are taken,” such as crafting an IEP for the student or providing them with outside counseling, she said.
Ferddy Gedeon, the internal vice president of Scholars Promoting and Revitalizing Care — an on-campus group that advocates for the mental health resources, among other things — said that early detection would be beneficial because it would allow students to get care before coming to college.
“These issues we see on college campuses more often than not start when they’re young, and are [exacerbated] when they get to college,” said Gedeon, a psychology major. “Getting an early childhood diagnosis and recognizing the signs early on, then you can take the necessary steps to treat it and make sure it doesn’t get worse when you get here.”
Creating an IEP — where parents, a teacher and a counselor craft a program designed to help address issues specific to a child — is the most common solution to issues with attention, organization and other learning processes.
“By tailoring these intervention programs, these individual education programs won’t focus on where they’re experiencing concerns or how they’re experiencing concerns, it will be able to map onto what causes the concerns and how to improve it all around,” De Los Reyes said.
Some students at this university think the early detection could improve not only students’ performance in school, but also their overall well-being.
“Some kids who have a disability, if it’s not detected and they don’t have the type of parents who can get them tested on their own, will be able to get help and get resources now,” said sophomore education major Jessica Parker.
Junior computer engineering and physics major Andrew Sumner thinks that while a more standard method to detect mental illness would be beneficial, it will be hard to implement across the board.
“I think the pursuit itself is noble, but will be difficult to implement and take a long time to reach with a reliable degree of accuracy,” he said. “But I’d say any additional resources and diagnosing and treating mental illness before it takes a developmental toll is money well-spent.”
