Most problems are much easier to perceive in all their splendor when numbers are put on the table. If you are told that there are many children who suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders, it may have a certain impact. But if we immediately add that up to 170,000 students aged 16 or younger in Catalonia suffer from these dysfunctions every day in class, the impression is substantially greater. Well, this figure is what Miquel Casas, professor of Psychiatry at the UAB and director of the Sant Joan de Déu SJD MIND Escoles hospital program, brought out yesterday in a new edition of the Quiral Opinion colloquium, organized by the Fundació Vila Casas.
This expert stressed that 1 in 5 children (or what is the same, between 20% and 22%) suffers from some pathology of this type (either ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -, ASD – autism spectrum-, speech disorders, dyslexia…) and that in many cases the problem continues into adulthood.
The figure is scary. “There are 170,000 students in Catalonia who are suffering every day in class,” she 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 those 170,000, only about 20,000 or 30,000 are diagnosed,” stressed Casas, who highlighted the importance of the diagnosis, emphasizing that if it is achieved between 6 and 16 years of age, “the problem is reversible.”
Casas made a very graphic drawing of how affected children go through different stages. He explained that between the ages of 6 and 9, and despite the dysfunctions that they carry and 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, it is difficult for them to follow class due to their neurodevelopmental problems). “That’s when they start to give up.” Shortly after, emotional discomfort begins to emerge, which “will transform into anxiety and depression from the age of 14 or 15.”
At that age, in addition, drugs appear on the way. “It is an initiatory challenge, and most of them come into contact with marijuana.” The problem is that young people with these disorders can end up getting hooked. “The dysfunction they suffer from is a risk factor.” And everything is getting worse: “There is a progressive process of marginalization.”
According to Casas, this vital journey explains “many of the social problems we have now.” In this sense, he argued that people with some type of disorder in their neurodevelopment are between two and three times more likely to die young from an accident, that between 30% and 35% of the prison population has some dysfunction of this type and that between 30% and 40% of people with ED also.
Not only young people without a diagnosis have a problem, he warned. Also those who have it. Because? Because public health does not cover these dysfunctions. “They are not within the service portfolio.” In this regard, he expressed his astonishment. Above all, due to the magnitude of the problem: “These disorders end up translating into 15% school failure, and in this scenario we do not ask ourselves if something happens to the children.” Hence he stated that “forgetting biology is a problem.”
The SJD MIND Escoles program, which he directs, goes to schools to detect these dysfunctions. “Between 7 or 8 years old, when children attend second grade, they are easily detected and can be treated effectively.”
In his turn, Dr. Joan Vegué, responsible for the mental health and addictions master plan of the Generalitat of Catalonia and who also participated in the colloquium, wanted to put the emphasis on the general mental health of our young people, emphasizing the great impact it had. the covid pandemic. And he put figures: between 2019 and 2021, suicidal behaviors tripled among adolescents and cases of EDs doubled. However, he wanted to emphasize that this data “is beginning to be contained.” Above all, in suicide attempts in 2023 compared to the previous two years.
He also expressed concern about “excess medicalization,” stating that more than 20% of children under 18 in Catalonia take benzodiazepines, and about the “little adaptive capacity” that young people have. In this sense, he stated that “something is not being done well” in the educational field. “It seems that limits cannot be set. Young people have to learn to manage frustration, because it is something inherent to life. They have to be more resilient,” she concluded.
