I am the father of an adopted special needs child. She was quite
abused & at the age of 7 reflects in some ways the learned experience
of a slow three year old. Experience is not always a teacher for her &
I understand there is a name or condition for this. I have been told
that some children can touch a hot stove & NOT learn to touch it
again. They will thus repeatedly touch the hot stove or whatever.
What is this disorder called?

Dear thebookguy-ga;

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question.
Children suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention
Deficit - Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have symptoms relative to the
problem you mentioned:

?Impulsivity: The child does not think before acting or talking and
does not consider the impact of his/her actions on others. Thus, they
do not learn from experience. This child may be accident prone because
of impulsive behavior combined with poor judgment.?
ATTENTION DEFICIT - HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
A GUIDE FOR PARENTS
http://www.kidsource.com/LDA/adhd.html

?ADHD children and young people do not learn from experience.
Sometimes with learning difficulties, although usually average to
above average intelligence, they are completely unaware of the impact
they have on their surroundings?
ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER 
WHAT IS IT?
http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/add/gail/article_add.htm

?Children with A.D.D. tend not to learn from experience, not to
anticipate consequences, and to be very inconsistent in performance,
all of which greatly frustrates the adults in their lives and results
in substantial criticism. This leads to the high frequency of
additional problems for these children. At least 60-70% will
ultimately also be diagnosed as having depression, some form of
anxiety disorder, a conduct disorder (anti-social behavior), and/or
oppositional disorder. No wonder parents and teachers scream for
help.?
WHAT IS ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER?
http://www.drheller.com/adhd.html


Another possible diagnosis is Antisocial Personality Disorder:

?A lack of socialization along with behavior patterns that bring a
person repeatedly into conflict with society; incapacity for
significant loyalty to others or to social values; callousness;
irresponsibility; impulsiveness; and inability to feel guilt or learn
from experience or punishment. Frustration tolerance is low and such
people tend to blame others or give plausible rationalizations for
their behavior Characteristic behavior appears before age 15, although
the diagnosis may not be apparent until adulthood.?
TARA EDUCATION
PERSONALITY DISORDER
http://www.tara4bpd.org/education.html

Yet another type of problem where experience is ineffective is Fetal
Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), caused by women drinking alcohol
while pregnant:

?Individuals with FAE may look normal and have seemingly normal
intelligence, but their damaged brains can result in learning
disabilities, impulsivity, lying, stealing, tantrums, violence and
aggression, inability to predict consequences or learn from
experience, lack of conscience, and being highly addictive.?
KEY FACTS ON FETAL ALCOHOL SPECTRUM DISORDER
http://www.fasworld.com/facts.ihtml

There may be others but these seem (in my non-medical opinion) to be
conditions most commonly suffered by a child such as yours.

I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES

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disorder "learn from experience"

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Request for Answer Clarification by thebookguy-ga on 27 Jul 2004 08:54 PDT

My daughter actually suffers from these disorders though one may
mimick others. However, there is an actual disorder where the child
does not learn from their mistakes. That is the answer I am looking
for. I do appeciate your info. It is what I have seen before, very
interesting isn't it? Do you know the answer to the question of what
the actual disorder is?
Thanks

---

Clarification of Answer by tutuzdad-ga on 27 Jul 2004 09:51 PDT

The only other officially named disorder that I can think of is
Autism, sometimes called Asperger's Syndrome or Hyperlexia. Within
these there are subtypes of hyperlexia. Some sypmtoms of Hyperlexic
Visual-Spatial Disorder for example are:

"Unorganized and inpulsive. Social inperceptions, problems reading
nonverbal cues. Does not learn from experience and continues to make
same mistakes."
PEACFUL COEXISTENCE 
http://www.hyperlexia.org/aha_winter9697.html

Experiential learning difficulties are quite broad and not easily
pinned down to one specific malady in a non-medical forum such as
this. Many are simply termed "behavioral adaptation disorders" whereby
a child simply does not equate an end result with a learning
experience. These can result from a variety of more specific problems,
Autism (Asperger's) being one of the many.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

"They do not learn from experience and often use poor judgement."
http://www.arbi.org/prevention/neuro_second.html

A symptom of FAS(Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)

Also Hyperlexia:
"Does not learn from experience and continues to make same mistakes"
http://www.hyperlexia.org/aha_winter9697.html

Last One.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder:

"Oppositional Children Fail to Learn from Experience..."
http://www.lakeshore-counseling.com/DefiantChild.htm

Reactive Attachment Disorder?

Most of these were already mentioned but as you can see, there are
MANY disorders that have these same characteristics.

tutuzdad-ga

Just to add a couple of comments here...

First, it's not ADHD, nor is it autism or Aperger's. First, ADHD is
not a learned behavior. It appears to be neuro-biological and appears
in some cases to be inherited. Further, ADHD as an "attention deficit"
disorder is something of a misnomer. It actually is better described
as a "selective attention" disorder. There really are three types of
ADHD--inattentive, hyperactive, and a combination. Kids with ADHD
often can focus intently on projects. They can and do learn. The
deficit appears to be in their executive functioning. There doesn't
appear to be a relationship between intelligence and ADHD; some very
bright kids have ADHD. A kid with inattentive ADHD might touch the
stove after you warned him/her not to...because the kid wasn't paying
attention. But after that first burn, trust me, the kid would learn. A
kid with hyperactive ADHD has poor impulse control. He/she might
interrupt you as you were trying to explain about hot stoves but,
again, would certainly learn not to touch a hot stove. Autism and
Aperger's are a different issue, but have nothing to do with an
inability to learn. Rather--and I'm less of an expert here--they tend
to be flooded with external stimuli and seek to withdraw. The LAST
thing an autistic kid or one with Asperger's wants is the sort of
stimulation overload that would come from burning one's hand. And, as
with ADHD, autism and Asperger's aren't learned behaviors. They
seem--for as yet unexplained reasons--also to have a neurobiological
origin. As for Oppositional Defiant Disorder (sometimes a comorbid
condition with ADHD or other disorders), ODD kids are intentionally
(I'd use the word "willfully" but that's a loaded term) defiant. They,
too, know what they're doing. They don't have the sort of learning
impairment that would cause them to repeat the same painful act over
and over. They might do it to, say, anger a parent...but they would
know precisely what they were doing.

Hope some of that helps.

It's defintely important too to point out that the comments statement
above are from a commenter, NOT a researcher and they are conveniently
unaccompanied by verifiable links, therefore his comments are suspect:

"First, it's not ADHD, nor is it autism or Aperger's." 
Like all of us, he has absolutely NO way of knowing that for certain.

"ADHD is not a learned behavior."
No one ever suggested it that it is

"Further, ADHD as an "attention deficit" disorder is something of a misnomer." 
This is a suprising statement since the malady itself has been aptly
named by medical scientists: ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER.

"But after that first burn, trust me, the kid would learn."
What else really needs to be said about the statement "trust me" when
one provides no proof?

"They might do it to, say, anger a parent...but they would know
precisely what they were doing."
No one argues with that. It's the fact that the child is DOING IT, not
WHY that concerns this customer. I clearly stand by my research.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga