Problem learners swamp hospitals
Children's clinics at hospitals across the country are clogged with patients whose real problem is their inability to read rather than a medical ailment, says the chairman of the Federal Government's inquiry into reading.
Ken Rowe, appointed last week to head the national inquiry into the teaching of literacy, said psychology clinics at hospitals were straining to cope with the deluge of children seeking medical attention for problems caused by their failure to learn to read at school.
"Hospitals are complaining that their clinics are being filled with kids who are being referred for things like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," he said.
"But once the pediatricians sort out the children's literacy problems, the behaviour problems disappear. What is essentially an education issue has become a health issue."
The Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne is overhauling its clinical services after an internal audit revealed that a quarter of all children who attended the emergency department and other outpatient services for medical help were diagnosed as having non-medical conditions such as learning difficulties and behaviour problems.
Vicki Anderson, director of the hospital's department of psychology, said she and her colleagues were stunned by the audit's findings on all outpatient referrals to the hospital.
"The figures show that families and GPs are voting with their feet to see pediatricians to deal with these kinds of non-medical problems, when they should be dealt with in the education department," Professor Anderson said.
About 500 children have been treated at the hospital's Learning Difficulties Centre in the past year; demand for its services has almost doubled each year for the past five years.
Professor Anderson said many children who were sent to the clinic because their teachers, families and GPs believed they had ADHD did not have the condition. Rather, the child's inattention or poor behaviour in class was secondary to their failure to learn to read at school.
"ADHD is clearly overdiagnosed," Professor Anderson said. "The appeal of a pill for ADHD is much easier than arranging twice-a-week remedial reading sessions. It's cheaper for the school and much less time-consuming to put an ADHD label on these kids. By doing that, you put the problem on the child, not on the system."
Professor Anderson said specialists in charge of child psychology clinics at large hospitals in other states had similar concerns about the growing number of struggling readers attending their clinics.
She said families often sought help at the hospital's learning difficulties clinic because they faced long waiting times at schools - sometimes up to six months - to have their child's learning problems assessed by educational psychologists employed by the education department.
A spokesman for Victoria's education department said the department was unaware of long waiting lists for assessment of learning problems. "The department is quick to assist any students who are struggling to learn," he said.