What would happen to the other children in the class?

Question

This is the scenario:

A child requires special-attention, due to a disability.

The health professional the child sees, falsely tells the child that the disability she has will "go away" by the time she is 15. - The disability the child has ACTUALLY will remain with the child her entire life.

The child goes to school.

How will the news that the child believes she will be "cured" in a few years, affect the OTHER STUDENTS in the class?

Answer 1

Interesting! I think the health specialist needs a refresher course.

There are many variables that are not mentioned such as age of students, type of class, familiarity of students, type of disability, and types of personality involved. It might also be affected by how the adults handle the situation.

Possibly little to no effect if the others are not aware of the situation.  However, the child may self disclose to a few students or the entire class.   The students might be confused, concerned or scornful.  Sometimes students will go along with what the special needs child says, much as they would not disclose that there is no Santa.   They might consider it true, positive thinking, or just bragging.  A wise teacher will guide discussions towards goal setting, high expectations etc.  Who knows what will happen?  Several years ago we had a student who was expected to do very little in class because he had a terminal illness.  Guess what?  They developed an experimental process and he lived.  Everyone's attitude towards his education changed. We would all have been better off if we had had higher expectations.

I have heard that kids can be cruel.  however, I have been a teacher for 30+ years.  In general, I find that kids are tolerant of differences.  A student who has been with the class for a long time may have the loyalty of the class.  They treat the special needs student with patience, celebrate his successes, and protect him from meanness.   I am thinking of several children who had more severe and more obvious problems such as mental retardation or autism.  Even when the kids went on to moddle school or high school, his old school mates would defend these students from others and treat them decently. Maybe we just have nicer kids, but I don't think so.

Answer 2

How do you know that the disability won't be cured by the time that she's 15???  I know that you never really get over a learning disability or any other kind but you can learn to over come it.  I did I couldn't read until the 5th grade and I learned that year because I was home recovering from surgery.  I Now read as many as 15 books a week.  If you didn't know that I'd been diagnosed with dyslexia  you couldn't tell from the way that I read or write.   So even thought technically I'm still dyslexic I've learned how to over come it.  You don't say what the disability is so we have no way of knowing if there is a chance or not.  As to how it might affect the other's it might give them hope that they can learn how to over come their disability also.  I know I have three daughters with disabilites and even my oldest who is developmentally delayed has improved to the point where she can live on her own.  And my middle daughter has graduated college and is working on her  graduate degree for education.  My youngest is a honor student who plans on becoming a nureo=psychologist and her psychologist doesn't see why it can't happen.  She also goes to a school for children with LDs and has for the last 4 years.  You might want to be more helpful about what the child  might be able to achieve.