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Positive approach helps “at-risk” children: visiting academic

April 04, 2005

chaffey graham 007.jpgBullying, stubbornness and inattentive daydreaming in children may develop into positive attributes later in life, according to a Canadian educationalist visiting the University of New England.

Dr Ken McCluskey, an expert on Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), has been researching this and problems associated with “at-risk” gifted children with Dr Graham Chaffey (pictured here), a lecturer in Education at UNE.

Dr McCluskey and chemistry professor Dr Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, both from the University of Winnipeg, are at UNE for a week to further educational opportunities between the two universities. The visit will include a public lecture by Dr McCluskey, who will talk about his work with ADHD children and how it could be seen in a more positive light. The lecture will be at 4 pm on Thursday 7 April in Lecture Theatre 111 in UNE’s Education Building.

(Professor Abd-El-Aziz will also present a public lecture; sponsored by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, and scheduled for Wednesday 6 April at 12.30 pm in the Riggs Seminar Room, the lecture will discuss large, iron-containing molecules used in the production of polymers.)

“Traits that can be negative in childhood could develop into positive attributes by adulthood,” Dr McCluskey said. “Stubbornness in a child may become determination later in life; similarly, inattentive daydreaming could later develop into creative thinking, while bullying may develop into leadership.”

Dr McCluskey said it was a positive attitude that helped him and his wife, Andrea, rear their ADHD daughter Amber and turn their experience into the internationally-acclaimed book “Understanding ADHD”. “Amber was the ‘poster girl’ for ADHD and we wrote extensively about the condition, and how we coped, in the book. Amber is now 29 and just completing her degree in education, so I know from personal experience how a parent’s positive attitude about ADHD can help reform the disorder.”

While at UNE, Dr McCluskey will be working closely with Dr Chaffey on The Winnipeg Project, a collaborative work aimed at identifying indigenous Canadian children with high academic potential using Dr Chaffey’s Coolabah Dynamic Assessment (CDA). This is a method developed by Dr Chaffey to identify “invisible” gifted academic underachievers (particularly Indigenous children) in Australian schools.

Dr McCluskey goes further to “reclaim” many of these children in Canada, actually approaching streets gangs and “drop-in centres” to find these gifted children and help them regain their studies. “We run a program that features creative problem-solving, that offers these children mentors, and that helps raise career awareness among them,” he said.

Dr Chaffey said he was particularly interested in this work. The pair hope to build on the Masters in Education program offered at UNE which specialises in gifted education. Four students from the University of Winnipeg are studying this at UNE through distance education, and the academics hope to expand on this.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at April 4, 2005 02:24 PM