The start of school is always stressful, but even more so for neurodivergent students — and their parents

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The start of the school year can be stressful, but parents of neurodivergent children are more likely to report feeling overwhelmed, unprepared and scared than other parents, according to a new survey shared with The Hechinger Report.

About 2,100 parents answered the survey this summer from Understood.org, a nonprofit that publishes resources for people with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and other learning differences. Those with neurodivergent children say they were stressed about their child’s social life, whether the school would meet their child’s needs and whether their child would have access to adequate resources to succeed in school. About 82 percent of those parents said neurodivergent students are often misunderstood by their peers, and 76 percent said they are often misunderstood by teachers.

Elementary-age children who think and learn differently may struggle more with the back-to-school transition because they have a harder time expressing their needs than their older peers, said Andrew Kahn, associate director of behavior change and expertise at Understood.org. “You’re much more likely to see this in behavior, and in avoidance and escape.”

Teachers can help ease the transition to school by looking for those signals and breaking down lessons and tasks early on, Kahn said. Simplifying activities step-by-step early on will benefit all children, he added.

“Some of this is getting teachers and parents to think broadly about how can we provide the smoothest way of instructing kids who are different — and who are neurotypical — in a way that’s going to decrease their sense of feeling different,” Kahn said.

Read more on neurodivergent students:

• Last fall, my colleague Jackie Mader wrote about the experiences of young children with dyscalculia, a learning disability that makes it harder to process numbers, and how a lack of awareness about it results in delayed diagnoses. The earlier a child gets diagnosed, the sooner they can get early interventions to help them succeed, Kahn said.

• But for some parents, the high cost of neuropsych evaluations hinders and delays those special education services, as my colleague Sarah Carr wrote in this story about disability testing.

• For parents of even younger children, finding a child care classroom that can meet their needs can feel almost impossible.

• Understood.org also publishes resources for parents and educators of children who think and learn differently and tips for specific scenarios.

• Earlier this year, Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat wrote about New York City slowly expanding its programs for children with autism, which an estimated 10,000 children in the city could benefit from.

• In 2019, Jackie wrote about preschool programs for children with disabilities and how federal spending on those programs has dropped over the past two decades.

Quick Takes:

Children who spent more time on tablets were more likely to have temper tantrums, according to a study of 315 children from Nova Scotia, Canada, published in JAMA Pediatrics last month. The study also found that children who struggled with anger and frustration at age 4.5 were likely to spend more time on tablets by age 5.5.

Third graders who attended transitional kindergarten programs in Michigan performed better in math and English language arts than children who attended other informal and formal early education programs in the state, researchers found in a study published by the University of Michigan.

This story about neurodivergent students was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.