53.1 TEACHING ADHD TO INDIAN TEACHERS AND PARENTS

Abstract

The prevalence of ADHD in India is reported to be 1.6% to 17.9%. This large spread is likely due to the unevenness in diagnosis of this common mental health disorder and the lack of familiarity with interventions. Indian teachers in lower resourced areas recognize problems associated with ADHD—inattentiveness, impulsivity, and disorganization—but may attribute them to lack of interest or motivation and noncompliance with the rules of the classroom. Although ADHD is highly heritable, deficits in the “core competencies” necessary for academic success are also linked with environmental stressors such as poverty, especially when experienced in the first months of life. It is prudent to inform teachers about ADHD so that the child’s behavior is not misapprehended solely as intentional, thereby allowing for the possibility of intervention. A child and adolescent psychiatry fellow gives remote lectures on ADHD to teachers in rural India, with an Indian educator as a collaborator and translator. Case discussions of “problem” children presented by the teachers serve to develop the content of the lecture and to illuminate cultural differences in meanings attributed to ADHD and culturally congruent interventions. Informational videos are shown to highlight insights gained by the teachers on ADHD. Working with a translator/collaborator, the child and adolescent psychiatry fellow learns lecturing and consultation skills in this experience with teachers from a different culture and country. He offers helpful information to the teachers while challenging the Western bias of his medical model and experiments with the use of visual media in teaching. This presentation demonstrates learning how to teach and consult important skills in child and adolescent psychiatry to teachers. It also explores Western bias in the diagnosis and intervention of ADHD and uses media to communicate mental health knowledge to teachers in India.