Most problems are much easier to see in all their glory when numbers are put on the table. If someone is told that there are quite a few children who suffer from disorders in their neurodevelopment, it can generate a certain impact. But if you then add that up to 170,000 students aged 16 and under in Catalonia suffer every day in class due to these dysfunctions, the impression is substantially greater. This figure is precisely what Miquel Casas, professor of Psychiatry at the UAB and director of the Sant Joan de Déu SJD MIND Schools program, brought to the table yesterday, in a new edition of the Opinió Quiral colloquium, organized by the Vila Casas Foundation.
This expert emphasized that one in five children (that is, between 20% and 22%) suffers from some pathology of this type (either ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -, ASD – attention deficit disorder the autistic spectrum –, speech disorders, dyslexia…) and that in many cases the problem lasts until adulthood. The number is scary. “There are 170,000 students in Catalonia who are suffering every day in class”, Etzibar said. And what is the real problem? The lack of diagnosis. Only one or two cases out of ten are detected. “This means that of these 170,000, only about 20,000 or 30,000 have been diagnosed”, emphasized Casas, who emphasized the importance of the diagnosis, stating that if it is achieved between the ages of 6 and 16 “the problem is reversible”.
Casas made a very graphic drawing of the stages affected children go through. He explained that between the ages of 6 and 9, and despite the dysfunctions that affect their behavior, “they try to be good children”. However, the picture changes when they reach ten and see that they keep failing at school (obviously, they find it difficult to follow the class because of the problems in their neurodevelopment). “That’s when they start to abandon each other.” Then, the emotional discomfort begins to emerge, which “will transform into anxiety and depression from the age of 14 or 15”.
At this age, in addition, drugs appear. “It’s an initial challenge, and most come into contact with marijuana.” The problem is that young people with these disorders can end up getting hooked on them. And everything is getting worse: “There is a progressive process of marginalization”. As Casas pointed out, this life journey explains “many of the social problems we have now”. In this regard, he argued that people with some type of disorder in their neurodevelopment are two to three times more likely to die young from an accident, than between 30% and 35% of the incarcerated population has some dysfunction of this type and that between 30% and 40% of people with ED also.
It’s not just undiagnosed youth who have a problem, he warned. Also those who have them. Because? Because public health does not cover these dysfunctions. “They are not part of the portfolio of services”. On this, he expressed surprise. Above all, because of the magnitude of the problem: “These disorders end up translating into a 15% school failure rate, and in this scenario we don’t ask ourselves if anything is happening to the children”.
The SJD MIND Schools program goes to schools to detect them. “Between the ages of 7 and 8, when children are in second grade, they are easily detected and can be treated effectively.”
In turn, Dr. Joan Vegué, responsible for the Generalitat’s master plan for mental health and addictions and who also participated in the colloquium, wanted to emphasize the general mental health of our young people, stressing the great impact that the covid pandemic had. And he put numbers on it: between 2019 and 2021, suicidal behaviors tripled among teenagers and cases of ED doubled. However, he wanted to emphasize that these data “are starting to be contained”. Above all, in suicide attempts in 2023 compared to the previous two years.
