420 Lit Paper. Effects of Mental Health in Children on Academic Performance

Effects of Mental Health in Children on Academic Performance
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Effects of Mental Health in Children on Academic Performance
Introduction
Mental health in children has been a disturbing issue, especially because of its adverse effects on educational performance. Numerous students with mental health challenges experience other difficulties such as misunderstandings with peers and teachers, bullying from their fellow mates due to slow reaction or comprehension, and poor concentration in their classes, among others. These challenges result in a slower learning process as compared to their peer without mental health problems. At times students with mental health issues end up dropping from school or get very low secondary school results. Their conditions end up worsening or they live miserable lives in the future. Due to the various challenges faced by these students, several researchers have looked into the issue by conducting studies to ascertain the relationship between mental health and academic performance, with an aim of creating awareness and opportunities for better treatment of students with mental health challenges.
Study by study review
The article by Murphy and his coauthors discusses the study of how mental health affects children’s academics (Murphy, et al., 2015). It also discusses how strategies to improve mental health in schools assist in bettering the performances of students with mental health problems. The article begins with stating how many researchers carry out studies on the relationship between mental health and educational performance in young children and teens (Murphy, et al., 2015). The researches show that most learners with mental health problems are always steps behind as compared to other students in several ways like; redoing grades, scoring low grades, dropping out of school, and missing out on school which results in a slow reading process (Murphy, et al., 2015).
The article acknowledges numerous studies that show the progress in academic performance made by students whose mental health challenges reduce with time. These studies claim that the learners end up performing way better than those students whose mental health problems do not get addressed (Murphy, et al., 2015). Based on the research findings, schools have incorporated programs into their systems for the learners with mental health. However, the rate at which schools incorporate the programs is quite slow due to unreliability of information. The studies either used a small sample group, examined one aspect of mental health, or did not adequately measure scholastic achievement; hence, their conclusions were not completely reliable (Murphy, et al., 2015).
From the article, the sample studied comprised of 2009 first grade and 2011 third grade students from Chile who were in the SFL program. First grade 2009 students were 61,807 while third grade 2011 students were 56,476 (Murphy, et al., 2015). One of the measured factors was academic achievement, and the researchers used students’ grade point average (GPA) of the end of year. From the sample data, 51,912 first grade and 54,623 third grade results were viable. The second measured factor was mental health challenge in students, measured by screening instruments. Screening tests for mental health problems checked out for any of three types; “aggressive-hyperactive, shy-oppositional, and inhibited-passive.” (Murphy, et al., 2015)
Sara and her coauthors wrote an article on mental health and its relations with educational attainment (Agnafors, Sydsjö, & Barmark, 2020). Their article is a research to examine the relationship between academic scores and mental health challenges at various ages. Sara and her coauthors introduce their article by discussing previous studies which show the correlation between the two factors in their article (Agnafors, Sydsjö, & Barmark, 2020). Most studies focus on how mental health affects educational performance in adolescents, and their results show that students with mental health challenges perform poorly than their peers with no mental health risks. Other studies discuss the inverse relationship, whereby education grades affect individuals’ mental health. Students who got low GPAs in their teens experienced depression almost immediately, and some suffered from mental health issues in their adulthood (Agnafors, Sydsjö, & Barmark, 2020).
This article aims at analyzing whether early detection of mental health problems in people can prevent academic failure. The authors study academic patterns of learners with mental health challenges from those at tender ages to adolescents and adults, to determine if academic performance is predictable based on early age mental health risk (Agnafors, Sydsjö, & Barmark, 2020). The article states the sample group was 1,723 children born within twenty months in 1995-1996, in Sweden. The mothers signed consent for themselves and their children, to be part of the test. Both the children and mothers took mental health tests, with children doing tests all through their education and their young adulthood. Some of the instruments they used included; “the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, Child Behavior Checklist, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Symptom Checklist, Teacher’s Report Form, and Adult Self Report” (Agnafors, Sydsjö, & Barmark, 2020). Other considered factors included; whether the parents were immigrants or natives, education background of mothers such as dropouts, and acceptability of students to higher education.
The third article by Annica and her colleagues aims to evaluate the relationship between mental health challenges in adolescents and their performance in upper secondary education (Brännlund, Strandh, & Nilsson, 2017). The article claims an increase in the cases of mental health challenges among the youth in Sweden. Most young people suffer from depression, personality disorder, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. At the same period the cases in youth mental health challenges increased, academic performances showed a great drop, which shows that the two items have a direct relationship (Brännlund, Strandh, & Nilsson, 2017). A research on post-birth conditions and education performance discovered that mental health generally affects scholarly achievements. Some of the studies claimed gender had no effect on the relationship, while others argued the prediction of academic score was different for boys and girls with mental health issues (Brännlund, Strandh, & Nilsson, 2017).
This article gets its data from Umea SIMSAB lab, the Swedish National Agency for Education’s Pupil Register and the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register (Brännlund, Strandh, & Nilsson, 2017). The sample group in the article entailed children born in Sweden in 1990, and lived in the country 20 years later. The test had two sample sets; the first sample had 115,882 contestants, with 55,991 boys and the rest girls. The second sample comprised of students who cleared their secondary studies in 2009, with a total of 85,180 students, 42,712 of them being boys. The study made use of two measures for academic performance; completion of upper secondary school, and GPA (Brännlund, Strandh, & Nilsson, 2017).
Jessica and her colleagues write an article on mental health and its relation to academic performance but they focus more on the longitudinal pathways of the two, between childhood and adolescents (Humphrey, Belsky, Boehnke, Vostanis, & Patalay, 2017). The article mentions the vast effects of mental health identified in young children and in adolescents such as death, and deterioration in physical health. These individuals also end up suffering socially and financially in their adulthood. Another element the article mentions is the effect of scholarly achievements towards an individual’s character, behavior and mental health status. Jessica and her coauthors argue out that studying the patterns and extents of academic performance and mental health problems, can result in a theory that could help come up with prevention measures (Humphrey, Belsky, Boehnke, Vostanis, & Patalay, 2017).
The article mentions three designs that explain the connection between scholarly achievement, outward challenges and inner indications, over time. The first design is the “adjustment-erosion model” (Humphrey, Belsky, Boehnke, Vostanis, & Patalay, 2017) which shows how the outward and inner challenges lead to problems in scholarly achievements due to issues with the peers and teachers in the learning process. This design also relates external challenges to inner symptom, with the claim that external challenges such as behavior issues, ...