The kind of side effects your student has will depend on the type of cancer they have and the treatment they receive. Treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy damage normal cells as well as cancerous ones. In many cases, side effects are temporary, but for some children, there can be long-term physical effects or 'late effects'.
Cranial irradiation is a type of radiation therapy for brain tumours and some high-risk forms of leukaemia. It carries an increased risk of learning problems for children. Some children have shown significant declines in cognitive ability.
Specific issues can include problems with:
Nonverbal skills such as abstract reasoning, visual-spatial skills and mathematics are especially vulnerable to cranial irradiation and intrathecal chemotherapy.
Read about the Late Effects Assessment Programme (LEAP) [1]
Common difficulties include problems with:
Children who have had cranial irradiation treatment may benefit from neuropsychological evaluation. Often the learning difficulties can increase over time. Good assessment and appropriate intervention can help minimise any effect on your student's ability to learn.
Cancer treatments can cause a number of physical health problems including:
It is important that you let your student's parents know if you notice anything out of the ordinary that is ongoing.
Find out more about treatments for childhood cancer. [2]
Survivors of childhood cancer may have a slightly increased risk of developing another cancer later in life. Learning to live with the worry of cancer returning (or developing another cancer) is another burden for these children and their families/whānau.
Research has shown that survivors of childhood cancer are at substantially greater psychological risk than survivors of other chronic but non-life-threatening illnesses.1
Siblings of children with cancer are also at increased risk of psychological problems. See Brothers and sisters of a student who has cancer [3].
1Cancer Care for the whole patient: Meeting psychosocial health needs - Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Psychosocial Services to Cancer Patients/Families in a Community Setting; Adler NE, Page AEK, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2008.
The pages in the childhood cancer and education section [6] of this website have been developed in collaboration with the National Child Cancer Network (NZ), and the Ministry of Education. Content has been approved by the National Child Cancer Network (NZ).
This page last reviewed 12 May 2022.
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Links
[1] https://kidshealth.org.nz/late-effects-assessment-programme-leap
[2] https://kidshealth.org.nz/tags/childhood-cancer-treatments
[3] https://kidshealth.org.nz/brothers-and-sisters-student-who-has-cancer
[4] https://kidshealth.org.nz/tags/educators
[5] https://kidshealth.org.nz/tags/whanau
[6] https://kidshealth.org.nz/tags/childhood-cancer-and-education
[7] https://kidshealth.org.nz/node/2495?language=mi
[8] https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/brain-injury/changes-to-physical-wellbeing
[9] https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/brain-injury/changes-to-cognition-and-thinking-processes
[10] https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/brain-injury/effects-of-abi-on-stages-of-development
[11] https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/brain-injury/changes-to-emotions-social-skills-behaviour-and-wairua
[12] https://kidshealth.org.nz/node/2346?language=mi
[13] https://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/resources-and-publications/videos
[14] https://kidshealth.org.nz/node/2354?language=mi
[15] https://www.younglivesvscancer.org.uk/life-with-cancer/my-student-has-cancer/
[16] https://kidshealth.org.nz/contact?from=http%3A%2F%2Fkidshealth.org.nz%2Fprint%2F2321%3Flanguage%3Dmi