Disruptive Kids Disrupt Learning For Everyone Else, Too
Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham writes on something many parents have wondered about: How much do disruptive kids interfere with other kids’ learning?
“Anyone who has spent much time in classrooms has the sense that just a couple of
Obvious though this point seems, there have been surprisingly few studies of just how high a cost disruptive kids exact on the learning of others.
Lori Skibbe and her colleagues have just published an interesting study on the subject.
Skibbe measured self-regulation in 445 1st graders, using the standard head-toes-knees-shoulders (HTKS) task. In this task, children must first follow the instructors direction (“Touch your toes. Now touch your shoulders.”) In a second phase, they were instructed to do the opposite of what the instructor said–when told to touch their toes, they were to touch their head, for example. This is a well-known measure of self regulation in children this age (e.g., Ponitz et al., 2008).
Researchers also evaluated the growth over the first grade year in children’s literacy skills, using two subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson: Passage Comprehension and Picture Vocabulary.
We would guess that children’s growth in literacy would be related to their self-regulation skill (as measured by their HTKS score). What Skibbe et al showed is that the class average HTKS score also predicts how much an individual child will learn, even after you statistically account for that child’s HTKS score. (Researchers also accounted for the school-wide percentage of kids qualifying for free or reduced lunch, as academic growth might covary with self-regulation as due to SES differences.)
Thus it would seem that kids who have trouble inhibiting impulses don’t just get distracted from their work; when they get distracted from their work they likely engage in behaviors that distract other kids too.” Read more here.
So the class average on a self-regulation measure predicts how much an individual child will learn. That’s really striking, and more evidence of how much peers matter in child development. Perhaps choosing a school for one’s child should be as much about choosing peers as choosing teachers and administrators.
With the push toward integrating special needs children into regular classrooms, you wonder what the long term, whole class, benefits really are. Clearly it likely benefits the special needs child but certain children the disruption could and does overwhelm the ability of the whole class to function.
It is important to remember that not all students who are special needs lack self-regulation. In fact, it often is gifted and talented students who lack self-regulation.