Children with neurological disabilities often face automatic judgment. Dr. Lekha Rao, Associate Professor of Pediatric Neurology at UCLA, delves into the necessity for individuals with neurological disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, to have access to mental health care services and psychosocial support, especially in light of school bullying incidents.
You can learn more in our articles about cerebral palsy and mental health in kids with disabilities. We also have an entire article dedicated to addressing bullying.
I think that's a huge part of any neurological disorder but especially with CP because it is visible to other people. A lot of other neurological disorders are sort of invisible, like epilepsy for example, you would only see it if somebody has a seizure in front of you. But with CP, people see somebody who has a disability and they then may make an automatic judgment. You know, or I often say, kids can be mean. They don't always mean to be mean, but sometimes they can be, and that can really sometimes impact quality of life more than a motor disability.
And so I think that it is really important to have the psychosocial support for, you know, if there's any incidents of bullying for the school to know about it, for them to have access to mental health care services. A lot of kids also because of the nature of where their injury might happen, it might impact their frontal lobe, and so they might be a little bit more impulsive, or they might have a tendency to be more anxious. And then if they get anxious, their motor function is not as good, so then we have to say well, let's also target your anxiety because you won't be able to be as successful in your therapies if you're so anxious that, you know, you can't participate. So I think that that psychosocial component is very very important.
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