Ruthlyn James | Jamaica’s silence on neurodevelopmental crisis is deafening

HUNDREDS OF children are punished for neurological differences their schools cannot name. In truth, they are dysregulated, unassessed, and abandoned by a system decades behind the science. That scene is no metaphor; it is daily reality in countless classrooms.

While policymakers argue over budgets and political optics, children with ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, autism, language delays, sensory sensitivities and other invisible differences fall through the cracks. Jamaica’s education system is imploding under the weight of unacknowledged neurodiversity; the time for polite reform has passed.

We have long treated behaviours we don’t understand as discipline problems, poor parenting, or moral failings. But global neuroscience, clinical practice and lived experience are calling us to a disruptive truth: many of these behaviours are the language of brains that think differently. When a child can’t sit still, can’t filter noise, or can’t organise a day, it’s not a failure of character; it is an invitation to re-examine how we teach, support and govern.

The numbers speak. In higher-resourced nations, estimates now place autism prevalence around one in 31 children, with parallel rises in ADHD, learning disorders and anxiety. While Jamaica does not publish comparable data, we must assume these trends are present here too, intensified by under-resourcing, late diagnosis and shame. The Ministry of Health and Wellness’ recent prioritisation of developmental training is welcome, but it remains a drop in a vast, parched field.

We must name the root crisis: systemic neglect. For decades, budgets have favoured bricks and mortar over specialists; preaching discipline over accommodation; rhetoric over accountability. Now the system is showing cracks. Classrooms that expect uniformity punish variance. Inspectors reward compliance, not accessibility. Teacher education neglects the neuroscience of difference. Many centres operate on the front lines of Jamaica’s neurodiversity crisis, yet remain isolated, underfunded, and largely invisible to public policy.

NOT ABOUT OUR CHILDREN

And yet, the loudest arguments in Parliament today are not about our children; they are about accountability in the Ministry of Health. If the ministry cannot manage transparency in procurement, how can it master the complex, sustained work of newborn screening, neurodevelopmental services, and therapeutic oversight in education? A system that tolerates opacity in health is the same system that will delay school psychologists, speech therapists, or accessible classrooms.

The new Child and Adolescent Wellness Centre in Montego Bay is a welcome step, but one centre cannot mend a national fracture. Even as ribbon-cuttings make headlines, the long-promised Children’s and Adolescent Hospital remains mired in delay; years after groundbreakings and photo opportunities, there are still no open wards, no clear timelines, no published staffing plans. Meanwhile, the rebranding of Bellevue Hospital as a modern psychiatric institution raises a haunting question: will a new sign undo a century of stigma? Politically correct language cannot rehabilitate what policy neglect continues to starve. Jamaica’s mental-health response remains fragmented; a patchwork of pilot projects, press releases, and goodwill unsupported by structural reform.

The warning signs are no longer silent. Suicides among young people are climbing. Special needs children are throwing themselves into traffic or collapsing under the weight of invisible despair. These are not isolated tragedies; they are the visible cracks of a nation’s breaking mind. What happens in our homes and classrooms mirrors the same untreated trauma that ripples through entire communities. Neurodivergent children and adults live this fracture daily: misread, mislabelled, unseen. And while the spotlight lingers on scandals, the negative reels and the click-bait, the positive stories, of resilience, innovation, and brilliance among neurodivergent Jamaicans, go untold. Too many suffer in silence, afraid to unmask for fear of ridicule or rejection.

The truth is this: you cannot build a credible mental-health system for children while the very institutions meant to protect them are stalled, unfunded, or left to advocacy alone. If the Ministry of Health struggles to finish a hospital, to staff a wellness centre, or to fund therapy posts across the regions, how can it sustain the continuity of care children require from birth to adolescence? And if the Ministry of Education continues to speak of inclusion while classrooms are stripped of psychologists, speech therapists and aides, then “inclusive education” becomes a hollow promise.

NOT IMPOSSIBLE

What must change immediately is neither mysterious nor impossible. Neuro-inclusive mandates must be embedded in law. The Education Act and ECC Standards should require universal screening for developmental and learning differences in early grades, with referral pathways into publicly subsidised multidisciplinary centres. Budgets must be held accountable for specialists. Concrete line items for therapy, assessment and assistive technology should be ring-fenced in both Health and Education allocations, with quarterly public reporting on staff numbers, wait times and parish coverage.

A joint governance task force should unite the Ministries of Health, Education and Social Services with independent auditing power over procurement, staffing and programme impact. Ministerial performance reviews must be tied to measurable outcomes; diagnostic wait times, inclusion rates and therapy coverage. Procurement must ensure that every cent spent on child development can be traced, audited and defended; especially when those funds could instead support early intervention, rehabilitation, or school readiness programmes.

Early-childhood teachers can also be re-trained as public-health allies. They are frontline health workers in initial classrooms, and their preparation must include neuroscience, trauma, learner variability and inclusive pedagogy, not as optional electives but as core certification requirements. Without this, children with invisible differences will continue to suffer misinterpretation and emotional harm.

Finally, Jamaica must introduce a National Neurodevelopment and Education Report Card to track assessment ages, therapist ratios, inclusion rates, drop-outs and mental-health crises among children.

Jamaica, no hand that holds power should be exempt from consequence. If Dr Tufton must answer for broken health systems, then too must every minister and parish team that overlooks the neurodivergent child. The classroom is burning! What we call delay is, in truth, neglect. The children are asking, in voices we have trained ourselves not to hear: Why don’t we belong? Why was I punished for needing support instead of receiving it?

Ruthlyn James is the founding director of Adonijah Group of Schools Therapy and Assessment Centre. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com