Abstract
It is difficult to be of the male gender, a boy or a man (Pollack, Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1999). Men suffer from numerous mental, emotional, physical, neurological, and neuropsychological disorders, and many go undiagnosed and untreated [Berninger & May, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(2), 167–183, 2011; Wasserman, McReynolds, Lucas, Fisher, & Santos, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 41(3), 314–321, 2002). Young boys tend to lie more than young girls and are more aggressive and oppositional [Toch, Violent men: An inquiry into the psychology of violence (revised edition). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1992]. Even at a very young age, in research studies, boys display behavior which is more aggressive whereas girls display behavior which is more nurturing [DiCicco-Bloom & Romer, Youth & Society, 44(1), 141–170, 2012; Pollack, Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1999; Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37(2), 190–195, 2006; Toch, Violent men: An inquiry into the psychology of violence (revised edition). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1992]. While the focus of this chapter is not on the physiological differences between genders, numerous chapters in the current volume focus in detail on which specific areas of the brain are different in males and females. This is initially introduced in chapter “Introduction to the Neuropsychology of Men: A Developmental Perspective from Theory to Evidence-Based Practice” by Zaroff and discussed in more detail in chapter “Imaging and Development: Relevant Findings in Males” by Semrud-Clikeman and Robillard. This theme continues in most other chapters which document a variety of brain structure differences (and related problems) between men and women. It is clear that boys and young males have more trouble in school classrooms than their female counterparts, and young men display more school problems as they mature—they are more truant and more violent in school, and also less engaged in their education [Kaplan & Cornell, Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 2(2), 148–160, 2004; Pollack, Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1999]. The male gender drops out of school more, and displays more conduct complications, more attention difficulties, as well as significantly more learning problems [Davis, Handbook of pediatric neuropsychology. New York, NY: Springer, 2011; Rosler et al., European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 254, 365–371, 2004]. The purpose of this chapter is to understand some of the history of men with Learning Disabilities (LD) and Attention Deficient/Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD), as well as to begin offering some possible solutions for the future. In an ideal educational enterprise, with a very low teacher to student ratio—perhaps 1:15—instructional individualization and teacher professional development, coupled with comprehensive school neuropsychological services, should help many of the difficulties discussed in this chapter disappear. But we do not live in an ideal world and most boys and young adults do not receive the services they so critically need [D’Amato, Fletcher-Janzen, & Reynolds, Handbook of school neuropsychology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2005; Pollack, Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1999; Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37(2), 190–195, 2006].
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D’Amato, R.C., Wang, Y.Y. (2015). Using an Ecological Clinical Neuropsychology Approach to Understanding and Intervening with Men with Learning Disorders and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders. In: Zaroff, C., D'Amato, R. (eds) The Neuropsychology of Men. Issues of Diversity in Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7615-4_4
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