School Functioning in Adolescents With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 2018, Knight et al

Sarah Jenette Knight1,2,3*, Jennifer Politis1,4, Christine Garnham1,4, Adam Scheinberg1,2,3,5 and Michelle Anne Tollit1,2,4,6

• 1Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• 2The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• 3Department of Pediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• 4Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• 5Department of Pediatrics, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• 6The Royal Children's Hospital Education Institute, Parkville VIC Australia, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2018.00302/full

 

Abstract:

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1080936713151827969

 

Emotional symptoms were not connected with school absence in this study, either.

 

Note that these are not the main Canadian ME/CFS criteria for adults

 

Schools, in our exoerience, simply can' t cope with prolonged part time attendance. Part time attendance is (usually) geared towards a return to full time attendance .

A combination of virtual learning and school attendance could offer the best of both worlds, however it is seldom available. Ideally suited for mildly affected , this could reduce the potential for progression to moderate . The no isolation robot could come into its own here.

I do not think educationalists appreciate the effort it takes simply to go to school, let alone be capable of learning.This is where simple measurement of attendance fails to see the bigger picture. Potential is not achieved BECAUSE children are forced to school and are being set up to fail.

There is no national MOODLE for simple information dissemination, let alone virtual teaching universally available for those who need it either for a few months or full time, and yet there are mant private providers in England and Wales ( interhigh, Nissai, apricot learning...). None in Scotland. Given Australia' s history of providing distsnce learning options, i would imagine that there could be more flexibility / availability.

Online virtual education could be a godsend - preserving function, limiting PEM, maximising potential for those for whom school attendance simply makes things worse.

As you fall further behind your peers it makes things much more difficult on all fronts.

The whole concept of school needs to change.

 

Before I read the results, I thought the measure used might not be the best to assess what they called "academic performance".

Someone with the condition might have general academic skills built up over a number of years but still faced difficulty learning and remembering information and so might have worse academic performance than expected for them. Also, there is a lot of variation in academic ability so somebody could be performing better than a population average but below their potential.

 

These points seem reasonable to me:

 

Sad for those this is true for (I might think a lot may catch up eventually).

 

The high SES and substantially above average IQ of the participants suggests participation biases in studies like this one.

 

Merged thread

A study of Australian teenagers with chronic fatigue syndrome found CFS impacted their development of academic, cognitive and social skills. Students with CFS missed an average of 42% of classes over a term.

Quite a few limitations with this study which the authors point out (small, no severe or very mild, high SES background).
https://meaustralia.net/2019/01/21/school-study-on-teenagers-with-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/