Social and Emotinal Disorders: trying to understand disruption to learning


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When we think of disorders and what should be done, two words have to be top most in our minds: knowledge and adequacy, Both words relate to behaviors that may stem from or be associated with the disorder, be it of an individual or of the school community. 
The core concern here is that we are all dealing with impairments, disorders and disabilities that still have a faulty perception and understanding. Science has yet to unravel all the pieces of the puzzle that forms the behaviors educators deal with in schools. 
The knowledge that staff needs may come from a basic yet thorough informative in-service program about what those learning disruptions are, what ways they can be manifested and how we can work the environment (people and settings) to best accommodate what is not in order, whether transient or permanent
When we consider adequacy, knowledge about treatments and medications is in order and school members have to be ready not only to recognize and know what different meds mean (stimulants are totally diverse from anti-depressants, and the use of psychotropics must be informed), but also how their prescription might affect the performance and behavior of affected individuals. 
That the use of medication is a viable and ever more available way for adequacy of behavior in a society that is set in a run against time is a true fact, but the extent to which this availability does promote any benefits to the individual learner, much is yet to be revealed as the research by Curie, Stabile and Jones (2014) suggests. 
Medication for social-emotional disturbances alone does not – and will not – remediate the fact that there is some underlying cause to an overt behavior as it is intended to address effects and not causes. More, both in term of cognition as in emotion, needs to be addressed. 
When dealing with social and emotional disorders, the net has to be cast wide. Take, for instance, the idea that emotional responses can be modulated phylogenetically (Tottenham, 2017) and that parental response (or style) in dealing with a child’s tendency – be it for a dandelion (or resilience prone) or an orchid (of a more fragile nature) according to Aamodt & Wang, 2011 – are where most answers may lie in respect to learning disruptions.
What measures then can the school take to address such wide-ranging causes? It seems to me that the answers take width as its denominator: the school community has to be widely considered. Once parents are excluded from discussions, from knowledge seeking and from adequacy of measures in an environment where their children are asked to deliver fast and well (and in scores), those key stakeholders have too much at stake not to be called in to be effective members of a holistic approach to dealing with disruptions. 
Whether there are disorders, deficit, impairments or disabilities, semantics alone will not cater for the range of strategies and behaviors that everybody has to be aware of, recognizant of and ready to address, even if it means changing the own behavior.
What steps do you take to understand disruptions to learning?

References
Aamodt, S. & Wang, S. (2011). Welcome to your child’s brain: How the mind grows from conception to college. New York: Bloomsbury
Currie, J., Stabile, M., & Jones, L. (2014). Do stimulant medications improve educational and behavioral outcomes for children with ADHD? Journal of Health Economics, 37, 58–69. doi:10.1016/jhealeco.2014.05.002

Tottenham, N. (2017). The brain’s emotional development. Cerebrum. Retrieved from http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2017/The_Brain_s_Emotional_Development/

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