Preventing and Overcoming Academic Failures / Comprendre et prévenir les échecs scolaires

Academic failure is often linked to a psychological or medical disorder.This book presents the main causes of academic failure: specific learning difficulties, hyperactivity, intellectual precocity, anxiety disorders, overwork, depression, behavioural disorders, cannabis, autism, schizophrenia, intellectual deficiencies, epilepsy, abuse. It then gives parents, teachers and child-care workers the scientific information and advice they need to understand each disorder and to participate in its early diagnosis and treatment. Because children suffer when they are faced with academic failure, the book concludes with a list of twelve ways adults can act to help them. For many parents, academic failure is a serious concern and the main reason given for consulting a child psychiatrist. Based on the most recent research, two child psychiatrists specialising in learning difficulties offer their solutions here in clear, accessible language.Academic failure has become a political issue. Traditionally, socio-cultural factors have been given priority, but these should not blied us to the need to provide each child facing academic failure with iedividual medical and psychological attention. The battle for greater social equality depends on medical and psychological knowledge as well as on access to treatment (the higher the parents' socio-economic bracket the earlier the child is referred to a psychiatrist).Claude Madelin-Mitjaville is a child psychiatrist. She is the founder of the magazine Approche Neuropsychologique des Apprentissages de l'Enfant (a neuropsychological approach to childhood learning) and of the association "Dyslexia."Gabriel Wahl is a child psychiatrist and a former expert in the law courts. He taught psychopathology at the University of Paris-VII, for ten years. He is the president of the Association de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire sur l'Echec Scolaire (association for multidisciplinary research into academic failure).