Study: Impact of unaddressed mental health issues on students is severe
Mental health is one of those topics that Americans don’t like to talk about much, unless it is forced into public view by tragedies such as Monday’s mass shootingat the Washington Navy Yard by a man who told police that he was hearing voices shortly before he killed 12 people. In the area or school reform, the mental health of students has been ignored too, despite the irrefutable fact that sick kids have a hard, if not impossible, time learning in class. But the consequences of failing to address mental health issues in students goes well beyond academic problems, as a 2013 study reveals.The 2013 study, called “Blind Spot: The Impact of Missed Early Warning Signs on Children’s Mental Health,” was written by Andrea M. Spencer, dean of the School of Education at Pace University in New York and educational consultant to the Center for Children’s Advocacy.
Spencer looked at data from 102 case studies drawn from school records of students ages 12 to 16 who had been referred to an area advocacy center because of persistent school failure, truancy, juvenile justice involvement or other court involvement. She sought to find out the types of developmental and social risk factors associated with
