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News Releases
Schools Learn Easy Ways to Help Students with Juvenile Arthritis
Columbia, Mo. (Feb. 21, 2006) Prepare a set of books in each classroom, place a footstool under the chair, let the student use a fat pencil, give the child some class task so that he/she can walk around from time to time...Sounds trivial? Maybe. But these tiny arrangements can make a big difference at school for a child living with juvenile arthritis (JA).
The first week of March is Juvenile Arthritis Week, a time to devote more attention and care to the 285,000 children in U.S. who are affected by JA and related conditions. To help schools better understand JA and develop effective coping strategies, a video recently produced by Missouri Arthritis and Osteoporosis Program (MAOP), Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (MARRTC) and Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) is soon to be released online for school administrators, principals, school nurses and teachers to watch.
A key message from the video is that, simple changes at school to meet important needs of children with JA can improve the student's academic performance. Some of these needs can be very small, but their impact on a child's safety, comfort and scholastic success should not be overlooked. Here are some useful tips that specifically address these needs.
1. Carrying heavy loads can be painful for children with JA. Allow the student to keep a set in each classroom and an extra at home could help minimize the pain.
2. Children with JA fatigue easily. Standing for long periods is not an easy task for them. In any case involving waiting, make sure that the student with JA stands in the front.
3. Moving from place to place poses problems for students with JA. Make an effort to shorten their travel distance by carefully arranging the class and locker locations. Allow them extra time to pack and leave class early so that they can move at a more comfortable pace.
4. Younger children with JA may not know how to express their pain. Establish a code to communicate stiffness and pain might make the task easier.
5. Writing can be hard for students with JA because their hands get stiff easily. Let them use computer or tape recorder instead. When writing is necessary, give the student extra time and let him/her use a large pen, for it is easier to grasp.
6. Because of the stiffness after sitting for an extended period of time, children with JA need to move around periodically. Create some "natural" opportunities so that they can have a little walk without being embarrassed, for instance, asking them to collect papers and pass out handouts.
7. A footstool and a desktop book holder can make sitting and reading a lot easier for students with JA.
8. Appropriate exercise can help children with arthritis develop confidence in their physical abilities. The PE teacher should work closely with the doctor, the school nurse and the family to gear the exercise program toward the child's specific arthritis condition.
While making these arrangements, one thing needs to be kept in mind - many students with JA try to ignore or even hide their problems because they don't want to "stick out." It is therefore very important to treat the child as normal as possible and make all those special arrangements as unobtrusive as possible.
"Children with JA do not always feel as good as they look. Their needs may very from day to day. Some days they feel healthy with few mobility problems while on other days they may be slow and not able to keep up," Margaret Lindsey, director of the Southwest Regional Arthritis Center at the St. John's Regional Health Center in Springfield, who narrates the explanation of juvenile arthritis and offers great advices in the JA video emphasized that, "it is therefore critical for all those involved in the student's school activities to communicate freely about the child's physical, emotional and scholastic growth and ability, so that they can be more responsive to the child's varying needs and better cope with them."
The JA video is part of a series of videos on chronic diseases and school related issues produced for viewing by educators.Click here to go to Missouri School Boards' Association Web site to view this streaming video. MAOP, MARRTC and MSBA are also producing a scoliosis video and an osteoporosis/calcium intake video to go with the JA video.
For more information or support, please go to http://www.marrtc.org/conditions/juvenile.html or http://www.jahelp.missouri.edu.
The Missouri Arthritis Research Rehabilitation and Training Center (MARRTC) was established in 1971 at the University of Missouri-Columbia Arthritis Center. MARRTC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (H133B031120) and is the only federally funded arthritis rehabilitation research and training center in the country.
As part of the MU Health Communication Research Center (HCRC), MARRTC's mission is to become a national leader in the areas of disability management and communication, improve the quality of life and promote independent living among people who have arthritis and arthritic conditions. MARRTC's core message is "Disability is everyone's issue."
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