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Health through school

Project overview

The ikidS-Waldorf (I'm coming to Waldorf School) project aims to research mental health after the coronavirus pandemic, to investigate the connection between young school entry age and the reappearance of ADHD-related symptoms at school and to include application studies, e.g. an eurythmy therapy project for children with ADHD symptoms on the threshold of puberty.

Logo of the ikids project

Further information

What has been developed so far

The IPSUM Institute, which was responsible for the project before the GKLS, has launched three cohort studies together with the Mainz University Medical Centre before children start school. There is a worldwide shortage of such longitudinal studies to research children's health development. The fruits of these research projects to date are the following new findings on the connection between school and health, which have been published in renowned journals.

  • There is a correlation between young school age and the onset of ADHD-related symptoms after starting school.
  • New ADHD-related symptoms appear a few months after starting school in the first year.
  • Children with chronic illnesses and an increased need for care already show difficulties at school at the end of Year 1.

The importance of such medical-educational studies was demonstrated by the great interest in the results of the asthma study (Alm, Swartz et al, Atopy in children of families with an anthroposophic lifestyle, Lancet, 1999 May. ANKER literature). The study showed that the more pronounced the anthroposophic lifestyle, the lower the asthma rate.

Publications

  • Wendt J, Schmidt MF, König J, Patzlaff R, Huss M, Urschitz MS. Young age at school entry and the evolution of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder-related symptoms during primary school. Results of a prospective cohort study. BMJ Open 2018; 8(10):e020820.
  • Diefenbach C, Schmidt MF, König J, Patzlaff R, Urschitz MS. Psychometric Evaluation of the Preschool Health Examination at German Steiner Schools. Results of IPSUM, a Multicentre Cross-Sectional Validation Study. Journal Research on Steiner Education (RoSE) 2018;9(2):44-61.
  • Hoffmann I, Diefenbach C, Gräf C, König J, Schmidt MF, Schnick-Vollmer K, Blettner M, Urschitz MS. Chronic health conditions and school performance in first graders: A prospective cohort study. PLoS ONE 2018;13(3):e0194846.
  • Gräf C, Hoffmann I, Diefenbach C, König J, Schmidt MF, Schnick-Vollmer K, Huss M, Urschitz MS. Mental health problems and school performance in first graders: Results of the prospective cohort study ikidS. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2019;28(10):1341-1352. doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01296-7.
  • Schnick-Vollmer K, Diefenbach C, Gräf C, Hoffmann D, Hoffmann I, Imhof M, Kiefer T, König J, Schlecht J, Schmidt MF, Urschitz MS. Indicators of academic well-being in healthy and chronically ill children: Psychometric examination and validation of adapted FEESS scales. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1-20. doi.org/10.1024/1010-0652/a000259.
  • Diefenbach C, Schlecht J, König J, Martin D, Patzlaff R, Schmidt MF, Urschitz MS. School skills of children with special medical care needs at the end of the first school year. Results of two cohort studies in Waldorf schools and traditional schools. RoSE - Research on Steiner Education Vol.11 No.1 2020. ISSN 1891-6511

Literature

  • J S Alm, J Swartz, G Lilja, A Scheynius, G Pershagen, Atopy in children of families with an anthroposophic lifestyle. Lancet, 1999 May 1;353(9163):1485-8.

Lectures

PUBERTY "Gender, growth spurt, identity crisis: "Am I right?"

Free lecture excerpt by Dr Martina Franziska Schmidt from the livestream on puberty from the "Medicine & Education" series, an advanced training series by GAÄD, the Association of Independent Waldorf Schools and the Association of Waldorf Kindergartens.

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