On Latent School Refusal in Junior High School

Abstract: School refusal is a grave social problem for adolescents, their families, schools andsociety in Japan today as well as other developed countries. We researched the mentality of junior high school pupils about their feelings or moods toward school attendance with a set of questionnaires in order to know how much they were oppressed by daily schoolattendance.
From such a viewpoint, we tried the questionnaire program at seven public junior highschools in a small city in the suburbs that developed rapidly and located not far away from a big city. We selected our subjects at random from one class out of each grade of each junior high school. The number of the subject pupils was 838: 429 boys and 409 girls. We postulated that the latent school refusals were those who answered all "yes" to three items which was always the case by school refusals in our climical experience. We found 117 latent school refusals out of the 838: 65 boys and 52 girls.
We considered three factors–problems concerning school, family and other daily activities.
From our research, we recognize that there are many pupils attending school with the possibility of them becoming dropouts (14.0%). Their mentality is characteristic of school refusal itself while they attend school almost everyday. We clinicians should be aware of the social structure and make every effort to secure the healthy development of adolescents.     

Public School Preparedness for School Shootings: A Phenomenological Overview of School Staff Perspectives

School Mental Health - Public school trauma responses to school shootings in the USA would benefit from a greater focus on trauma intervention in the aftermath of a shooting. The current research...     

Adolescent Obesity and School Performance and Perceptions of the School Environment Among Minnesota High School Students

This study examined associations between adolescent obesity and school performance and perceptions of the social environment and safety at school. Data are from the Minnesota Student Survey (n = 87,468 students) which was administered statewide in the spring of 2007. Student’s responses to questions about grades achieved in school, skipping school, future school plans, and perceptions of the social environment and safety in school were analyzed in relation to their weight status using logistic regression and general linear modeling. Overweight and obese adolescents were significantly less likely to plan to go to college; more likely to report skipping school because of fears of safety, lower academic grades, an individualized education plan, and negative perceptions about the social environment and safety in school than non-overweight students (all p < .001). Study findings can help guide school and other health professionals’ assessment and intervention strategies to improve the quality of life for overweight and obese youth.     

Adolescents in Transition: School and Family Characteristics in the Development of Violent Behaviors Entering High School

Adolescents are vulnerable to becoming involved in problematic behaviors, disengaging academically, and dropping out of school. This study was designed to evaluate the protective role of self-perceived school attachment and family involvement on the development of these negative behaviors during adolescence. The Social and Health Assessment (SAHA) survey was conducted among 652 predominantly minority, inner-city adolescents during their transition from middle to high school in order to examine school attachment, perceived teacher support, parental control, and exposure to community violence as predictors of engagement in violent activities, development of aggressive beliefs, perception of school climate, and academic motivation one year later. Family and school factors appeared to be differentially associated with the negative outcomes. School attachment was associated with lower levels of violent delinquency and aggressive beliefs, as well as with academic motivation. Perceived teacher support was associated with positive perceptions of school climate and with academic motivation. Parental control was associated with lower levels of violent activity and with higher levels of academic motivation. Violence exposure was related to violent delinquency and negative perception of school climate. School attachment, teacher support, parental control, and violence exposure must all be incorporated into school reform efforts intended to break the inner city cycle of violence.     

Towards School Mental Health in Nigeria: Baseline Knowledge and Attitudes of Elementary School Teachers

There is a shortage of child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) professionals all over the world, and this shortage is especially critical in most parts of the developing world. Schools have been identified as ideal settings to reach needy children in the community, and training teachers in CAMH issues can help improve early identification and appropriate referrals of children with mental health problems. As part of a needs assessment for developing a training programme, selected Nigerian elementary school teachers were asked to complete confidential questionnaires to determine their perceptions of mental health problems in school children. Teachers indicated that they had no previous CAMH training. Baseline assessments revealed that teachers' knowledge of CAMH was deficient, and attitudes to children with mental health problems revealed intolerance. Incorporation of CAMH care into teacher education curricula is a critical next step towards integrating school teachers as mental health collaborators in school mental health programmes in Nigeria.     

Epilepsy in Bristol Secondary School Children

The recent report of the British Advisory Committee on the Health and Welfare of Handicapped Persons entitled People with Epilepsy (1969) deserves study far beyond British shores as a framework within which to restructure our thinking about epilepsy. In their "Envoi" the Committee makes the comment that, "There were many areas of the life of those with convulsive disorders about which we would have liked to have factual information." They made a firm plea for further clinical and social research. With the active support of the British Epilepsy Research Fund we are attempting in Bristol—a typical North European city—to answer some of their questions in order to find out more about the life and needs of school children with epilepsy.     

School achievement in treated PKU children

ABSTRACT. Phenylketonuric children who were treated early and maintained a phe- restricted diet through age 10 were compared with those who discontinued the diet after age 6 on a standardized test of intelligence, school achievement, language and perceptual skills. Mean IQ, reading and spelling test scores improved between ages 6 and 10 for the on-diet children in comparison to those who were off-diet. However, mean scores on arithmetic, language and perceptual skills declined at a uniform rate for both groups. Children with PKU scored significantly lower than did their non-PKU siblings on tests of visual perception and visual-motor skills. Because the school years, particularly, the early teens, pose increased stress in affected PKU individuals, it is recommended that dietary restriction at least through the high school years is prudent for their optimal physical, mental, emotional and educational growth.     

School refusal in pervasive developmental disorders

Of 135 autistic and/or mentally retarded youngsters, 30 with pervasive developmental disorders and 2 with nonautistic mental retardation showed school refusal according to its modified definition. School refusal was significantly more frequent in other PDDs than in nonautistic mental retardation. The intellectual level was significantly higher in PDD children with school refusal than those without it. A certain level of mental development and obsessive tendency appear necessary for PDD children to develop school refusal. In order to treat school refusal in PDD, it is important to make school a pleasant place to go and to encourage the child to attend.This study was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (No. 63480263) from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan. The author thanks Hide Adachi and Hiroko Taniguchi in the Child Guidance Center affiliated with the National Welfare Foundation for Disabled Children in Tokyo for their assistance in data collection.     

School Violence Reduction: A Model Jamaican Secondary School Program

Violence in United States' schools is epidemic. Solutions are rare. Community mental health centers are now being challenged to become part of the solution. The Montego Bay Secondary School project presents an example of how violence reduction can be achieved using almost no physical resources and the special effect, called the Bruno Effect, created by one Jamaican police officer with the consultation of a psychodynamically-led training and intervention team. The Bruno Effect resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of physical attacks from an observed 5 fights per day (3 out of the 5 involved knives and cutting) to 1 per week. The violence rate returned immediately to its former level as soon as Bruno left the school. The dramatic violence reduction appears related to establishing an adult protective shield. Results stem from the unique personality of the adult protector, as well as a combination of the special role of the police and the outside intervention team.     

School Shootings,High School Size,and Neurobiological Considerations

SUMMARY

In the last decade 17 multiple-injury student school shootings have occurred in the United States, 13 at high schools and 4 at middle schools. Research suggests that high schools function best academically as well as socially at enrollments around 600 (150 students per grade), the natural group size of humans. Eleven of 13 high school shootings occurred in schools with enrollments over 600 students, and many with over 1,000 students. Violent and antisocial behavior is associated with deficits in social information processing, which is necessarily exacerbated by complex social environments. School shootings may be in part a response to the unprecedented social complexity of large schools. Median public high school enrollment now stands at 1,200 in suburbs and 1,600 in cities despite the fact that smaller schools are superior to large schools on nearly all academic and social measures of success including graduation rate, student satisfaction, conduct infractions, athletic participation, absenteeism, and dropout rate. Educational institutions should adapt to the neurobiological limitations of children instead of forcing children to adapt to the unnatural requirements of such institutions.     

School Bullying and Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors: Do School Belonging and School Achievement Matter?

International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction - The objective of this study is to examine whether school bullying predicts increased internalizing and externalizing behavior through...