Cure for Learning Disabilities

A bold claim? Perhaps, but what if it is true? Various learning disabilities in children are easily cured. It doesn't take drugs or behavioral therapy, it just takes safety.


Think for a minute about a time when you were scared or uncertain. Maybe you felt physically threatened. Perhaps it was a more emotional fear. Whatever the circumstances, it is probably safe to say that all people have experienced fear. When you are afraid, is it harder to focus and attend to minute details? Do you feel the fight or flight syndrome begin and you take up an "on guard" position?

The sympathetic nervous system is a network of neurons that kicks into action when danger or threat is perceived. This is the scientific backing for the fight or flight response. When the sympathetic nervous system activates, it prepares your body to deal with the issue at hand, either shove a spear in the lion's face or run away from it (good luck on either proposition). Your body shuts down some activities, like digestion, and reroutes the internal resources to other functions, like moving your major muscle systems.

The whole purpose is to get you to a safer environment. Once resolution of the dangerous situation is accomplished, the parasympathetic nervous system takes control and returns your body to normal. Prolonged time in the sympathetically aroused state can lead to health problems. Is it far-fetched to believe that prolonged states of fight or flight mode could lead to diminished cognitive abilities?

Maybe you have already thought about this, but I haven't. I know there are a lot of kids out there facing uncertainty at home on a regular basis. One or both parents are neglectful or missing altogether. Or maybe they are present, but abusive. Economic troubles in the home lead to malnourishment and stress. Outside of the home there can be peer troubles. All of these variables can combine to make for threatening environment for a child. With their bodies at a constant state of fight or flight arousal, how can they focus on school work?

If this is the case with some children, then perhaps working providing safer environments ought to be the number one priority, leaving drugs out of the equation all together. Through TV and other media children are exposed to many worries and issues that may be more than they are capable of handling at a young age. With less than stellar parenting situations they don't have access to help in dealing with the information they are taking in. Children need time to be children. They don't need to know about the topics that so many Disney Channel and Nickleodeon programs are portraying. Parents need to be fully involved with the information their children are consuming, and offering explanation and assistance where necessary.

I think that if parents will get more involved with their children and provide a safe environment for their children, then the children will behave better and be able to learn better. They say you shouldn't corner a wild animal. If you have ever seen a frightened animal you know there isn't much hope of teaching it about the components of a sentence. This is a loose comparison, to provide a graphic image for your mind; I don't think children are like animals, not any more than I think there is an animal degree to all humans. The point is that as a society we need to be less willing to jump on the quick-fix express (such as pharmaceuticals) and more willing to make a concerted effort to help the people around us, especially our children and family members.