Educating Children with Asthma

Asthma is a medical condition that impacts many children. In fact, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 9.4% of chidren (ages 0-17) living in the US in 2006 had asthma. Because of the high prevalence rates of asthma, schools are nearly guaranteed to have children with asthma within their buildings. Although asthma is not often thought of as causing educational problems, it does have a number of negative effects on students' school experiences.

To begin, although children with asthma often do not receive special education services, asthma does seem to have many negative effects on children's learning and school experiences. Absences due to asthma symptoms seem to cause the most problems for students. In fact, in 2002, asthma caused children ages 5-17 to miss a total of 14.7 million school days (Forbis, Rammel, Huffman, & Taylor, 2006). The individual student with asthma misses an average of 14.6 school days per year (Vaugh, Bos, & Schumm, 2007). In addition to causing absences, Bray et al. (2004) found that children with asthma are also at increased risk for decreased school performance, emotional and behavioral deficits, restriction of various activities (ex. sports), and poor peer relationships. This article will detail the many ways in which asthma impacts school functioning by focusing on asthma's connection to other disabilities, how asthma impacts academic functioning, how asthma influences psychological functioning, and how asthma affects students' personal school experiences.

Asthma's Connection to Other Disabilities