Natural disasters impact children's longterm learning abilities, new study suggests"We need to take

[applegrove]

Natural disasters impact children’s longterm learning abilities, new study suggests"We need to take the long view in our short term responses."

KYLA MANDEL at Think Progress

https://thinkprogress.org/study-suggests-natural-disasters-impact-childrens-longterm-learning-926e2f65c0de/

"SNIP....

According to Lisa Gibbs, one of the study’s authors from the University of Melbourne, a child’s learning abilities will typically progress each year. But that wasn’t the case for the children in the most affected areas of Victoria. “What we found was that actually, for these kids… they didn’t progress as you would’ve expected,” she told ThinkProgress.

Most studies examining the impact of natural disasters on children’s learning abilities look at a short-term window, up to three years after the event. Thursday’s study is one of the few to study a longer time period, explained Gibbs.

“I think it’s probably self-evident that people will experience distress and that will affect their ability to function — that’s just a normal response to a very abnormal experience,” she said. “What I was interested in was: How does that play out over time?”

..... (long term effects)

According to the study’s researchers, one of the reasons why students’ numeracy and reading abilities were highly affected was likely because these skills require higher levels of concentration. Another reason could be that the underlying cognitive skills required for these subjects are known to be impacted by early trauma experiences.

.....SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Poverty is trauma too. Only it is not a short term incident but an intergenerational

one.

[lunatica]

2. If true that explains the sad state of humanity perfectly.

Who hasn’t experienced trauma?

[applegrove]

3. Um. Many people have not faced awful trauma in their young lives. I was

30 before I did experience anything really traumatic. I had been scared once as a kid by an older kid at school and socially ostracized for being my painfully shy self as a teen. But nothing like real trauma till 10 years into my adulthood.