1.1 What are early indicators?
Indicators are signs and symptoms that a learner presents. They provide moments of insight into how a learner is coping. This may be related directly to their studies, or more broadly to their real-life circumstances. Indicators can show the emotional and psychological state of learners and therefore communicate to you that a learner is experiencing mental health challenges.
Such indicators may present as verbal and/or non-verbal signs. Verbal indicator signs may be seen through changes to speech and language, or expressions of distress or irritability. Non-verbal indicators include facial expressions, body language and gestures, which are not always easy to interpret. Non-verbal indicators also include changes to study-related habits that you learned about in Week 1, such as poor attendance and punctuality; presenteeism and withdrawal from learning; avoidance of contact with yourself or other learners. Other non-verbal indicators might be reports of problems sleeping, significant weight loss or gain, or atypical uncontrolled alcohol intake or substance abuse.
Human beings are already wired to be able to interpret social cues, but it doesn’t necessarily always mean your interpretation is correct. Sometimes it can be difficult to work out whether something is usual behaviour for an individual, whether they have a physical illness or whether they are showing early signs of mental health challenges.
As an educator working with adult learners, you may experience situations where you have worked with a learner for some time and start to notice something different. Or you may have just met a learner, but you pick up on something that seems ‘out of place’, and you aren’t quite sure how to interpret it.
Activity _unit5.2.1 Activity 1 Interpreting indicators
Think about the following scenarios and write down what you think might be the potential causes underlying the learner’s behaviours. Might they indicate a mental health difficulty, or could it be something else?
- A learner arrives for the session and is trembling and shaking, appears to be short of breath and is sweating.
- You have noticed that one of your learners has started to arrive late and seems to be tired all the time and is finding it increasingly difficult to focus. The learner has also been seen crying in the library.
- In an online learning environment, you notice that a usually pro-active and outgoing student is posting negative comments in the chat, alluding to being behind with their work and sharing that they are feeling overwhelmed about their learning.
Discussion
What conclusions did you draw from the scenarios? It can be very difficult to differentiate between what might be usual behaviour, physical illness, short-term responses to stress or mental health difficulties. All of the above could be any of these. The key factor is to be observant and to look out for changes in usual behaviour which will be discussed next in this section.