Why do bright kids make bad decisions and get into trouble?
In my speech pathology practice, I often come across children who are brought in because they are not reaching their potential in school. They have often had Psychology evaluations that have shown them to be brilliant children. But in real life they just don’t work well.
All language assessments can show that they have good comprehension skills, following directions, and remembering what they hear.
So why do they often mess up at school and get into trouble with teachers and at home? Children often cannot explain their choices, their behavior, or their inaction. Parents look for answers.
So the next area I usually look at is the ability to answer questions that involve inferential reasoning. I use an evaluation tool called “Test Problem Solving”, commonly known as TOPS. This test presents the child with a series of pictures of situations involving other children. They are then asked a series of questions about each situation.
Responses to questions rate a child’s ability to answer questions that involve:
· Explaining the inferences (eg How do you know the child is sick?). This skill is necessary if children are to be able to gather evidence, understand the implications, realize what a situation is likely to mean, or explain their own behavior. It is also crucial for answering written questions about texts in school. If this skill is not developed, children miss information, miss the point of what they see or hear, and do not understand nonliteral speech such as sarcasm, jokes, or figures of speech. They may misjudge other people’s actions or intentions.
· Sequencing (eg, What will dad do next?) This skill allows people to learn to plan, organize, and perform tasks logically without missing vital steps. It also ensures that children can guide their listener and tell a story that makes sense to others, rather than just launching into the middle of a story without saying when or where it happened.
· negative problems (eg Why wouldn’t you shake hands now?) Negative questions use more complex language than why questions, and require a shift in perspective to understand. People around us use these types of questions constantly (Why not…? Why shouldn’t I…?)
· understand the causes (eg, What could have caused the lights to go out in the building?) Children who don’t see how they got into a difficult situation often can’t explain why. Therefore, they are unlikely to learn from their mistakes. They will have difficulty answering school subjects involving, for example, History or English, where they need to analyze what led up to certain events.
· suggesting solutions (eg What could the girl do the next day?) Some children find themselves in difficult situations and only make things worse because they cannot think of the best thing to do under the circumstances. Children (and all of us!) should be able to evaluate a variety of solutions and choose the one that will make things better, or at least stay the same, not worse.
· problem prevention (For example, What could these children do to prevent germs from spreading in their classroom?) Often the answers to these types of questions involve children having some knowledge about the world and then being able to generalize and apply it. that knowledge to specific situations. Children who don’t understand how to prevent problems, of course, often end up in trouble.
If your child has any of the difficulties discussed in this article, it’s probably worth not just assuming he’s naughty. This may be the case, but check whether or not they can answer these types of questions first. Behavior management strategies may need to be implemented, but if the underlying reasons for poor decisions are not addressed, little will change in the long run.
Academically, a child can progress much faster if these inferential reasoning skills work well for him.