Underachievement and failure in school is a common thing for children with ADHD. Their grades may not be totally reflective of what they have in their brains and this is what is most frustrating to parents and teachers alike. Others say these children could have achieved more if they worked harder or behaved better in class. But is this the real score?

BASIC PROBLEMS

Children with ADHD have three main characteristics that could interfere with their academic performance. Their inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity can lead to two basic problems that could spell disaster in school: 1) their difficulty with persistence of attention and resistance to distraction; and 2) disinhibition.

Their inattention makes it difficult for them to continuously focus on something and at the same time resist distractions around them. They may have trouble focusing on important information like a lesson in class and would rather pay attention to what is more exciting or stimulating like the sound of ringing bell or the colorful and sporty bag that a classmate has.

They may be unable to sustain attention, especially when lessons in class seem to be repetitious or when they are given prolonged tasks like copying long notes or answering exams.

What would this lead to? Needless to say, they will not understand the teacher’s lesson if they do not listen attentively and neither will they have notes if they do not finish what they are copying on the board. Some will just pass their papers without reading the directions carefully and checking their answers afterwards just so they could “wrap up” the “long and grueling exam”.

Their hyperactivity and impulsivity may cause the problem of disinhibition. These children may either be physically or verbally hyperactive and some teachers may see this as a “misbehavior” specially when they are expected to sit quietly in class. Some would just stand up and go out of the room unnoticed while others who are more verbally hyperactive will tend to disrupt their seatmates by talking or even disturbing them constantly during class hours. This may seem “odd” or even irritiating for some classmates and worse, an “easy target” for the teacher. And as we all know, behavior is a part of the grading system in the traditional school set-up and an ADHD child who behaves like these will definitely “lose” in the conduct department.

The impulsivity of children with ADHD can also cause them to have great difficulty to do a any task requiring delay or reserve like waiting for their turn in lines, raising hands to answer questions, reading or listening to directions, and asking questions if they don’t understand their teacher, among others. This may result in giving wrong answers during recitation or most specially during
exams.

This not to mention that most children with ADHD have coexisting learning disabilities, especially in spelling, reading, writing, and math.

‘EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS’ AND ADHD

Right from pre-school up to the higher levels, these children’s biologically-based inability to inhibit behavior and control responses may prevent them from meeting school demands for self-control and self-direction such as: to stay in their seats quietly and ask permission first if they need to go out; to raise their hands before talking; to listen attentively when the teacher speaks; to follow directions in their seatworks, exams and projects, to complete school work on time, and to develop independence and organizational skills.

Most of these difficulties in school may be attributed on these children’s ability to utilize the “executive functions” of the brain.

Executive functions are the so-called “overseers” of the brain. According to Russel Barkley, a renowned ADHD expert, “the deficit in inhibition (the core of ADHD) impairs the development of these executive functions. Apparently, in children with ADHD, the executive functions are developmentally delayed compared with other children of the same age.”

ISandra F. Rief (an award-winning educator, author and speaker who specializes in ADHD) lists down some of the components of executive functions such as: “working memory (holding information in your head long enough to act upon it); organization of thoughts, time and space; planning; sustaining alertness and effort; self-regulation; emotional self-control; sequential thinking; and developing and following through on a plan of action”, among others.

When these executive functions do not work well, children with ADHDADHDADHDADHD may encounter difficulties such as:

Planning how to tackle assignments - they may not know how and where to start specially if they are given multiple tasks (Ex. Too many assignments to do);

Staying on tasks – once they get started on which work to do first, the “persistence of their attention” may get in the way and they may find it hard to stay “on task” and “”block out” distractions

Completing tasks – since they have difficulty staying on task, they may also find it hard to finish what they are supposed to complete most specially long-term projects.

Making transitions – if they are able to finish their work, the next ordeal is making the transition on which task to do next;

Following through on directions – their inattention to details makes it tough for them to follow directions thoroughly;

Producing work at consistently normal levels – they may produce work that are outstanding in one moment or just “so-so” in the next;

Organizing multi-step tasks – they may find it complicated to do things on a “step-to-step” basis, again, their impulsivity gets in the way that they want things done “pronto”!

ACCOMMODATIONS

Ms. Reif adds that “executive function weaknesses causes academic challenges (mild to severe) for most students with ADHD, irrespective of how intelligent, gifted and capable they may be. They will need some supportive strategies and/or accommodations to compensate for their deficit in executive functioning.”

Some of the more common accommodations that a school could easily provide for children with ADHD may include the following:

1. Teacher – place children with ADHD with teachers who are:
• upbeat, positive, highly organized
• use praise and reward liberally
• willing to go on an extra mile to help students succeed
2. Environment
• predictable
• display rules• post daily schedules and assignments
• call attention to schedule changes
• set specific times for specific tasks
• design a quiet work space for use upon request (Ex. Library)
• seat the child with positive peer models
• plan academic subjects for morning hours
• provide regularly scheduled and frequent breaks
• use attention getting devices
3. Curriculum
• modify instruction
• mix high and low interest levels in subject matters
• provide computerized learning materials
• simplify and increase visual presentations
• teach organization and study skills
• use learning strategies such as mnemonic devices and links

UNDERSTANDING ADHD

Aside from the accommodations that the parents and the school will agree upon, it is also highly important for classroom teachers to be constantly aware of how the symptoms of children with ADHD could affect and even impair the child’s academic performance.

Teachers should bear in mind some of the basic principles in teaching children
with ADHD:
1. Even when functioning successfully, an ADHD child may exhibit more restlessness and overactive behavior than other children.
2. Do not assume that a student is lazy because of problems concentrating or staying on task.
3. ADAD/HDHD children are inconsistent; sometimes they are able to work and concentrate and other times are not.
4. Do not give up on a behavior modification and discipline techniques that you try to implement in the classroom.
5. Include other school and mental health professionals in your dealings with an ADHD child.
6. Keep your mind open to new techniques and approaches to the child.
7. Modify assignments and make exceptions when needed to benefit an ADHD child.
8. Be involved in your classroom.
9. Do not give up on an ADAD/HDHD child.

WHO KNOWS?

I would like to end this piece by citing an anecdote: “Thomas (Al) Edison’s schoolmaster,
angered by the lad’s inattentive ‘dreamy,’ distracted behavior, frustrated by his tendency to drift off during recitations, to draw and doodle in his notebook instead of repeating rote lessons – cuffed and ridiculed Al in front of his motley classmates.

Teachers saddled with disaffected students like Edison were judged by how many pupils were promoted from one grade to the next, and they needed to rationalize the actions of children who were ‘not apt.’

Sure enough, ‘One day,’ Edison recalled with bitterness many years later, ‘I heard the teacher tell the visiting school inspector that I was addled and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother.’ His indignant mother ‘brought [him] back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself.’”

Mrs. Edison pulled Thomas out of school and began home-schooling, determined that “no formalism would cramp his style, no fetters hobble the free rein, the full sweep of his imagination.”

As we all know, Edison became the American genius of technology inventing the incandescent lamp, the phonograph and the motion picture projector, among others.

Again, who knows if the ADHDADHDADHDADHD child in your class becomes a future Edison? Just give them a chance.

*****
References: Sandra F. Reif (2003). The ADHD Book of Lists, Rosario Margarita A. Aligada, PhD; Marie Michelle Q. Astillero, OTRP and Carlota C. Pineda, PTRP, Eds. (2002). Managing ADHD in the Grade School Classroom, and Neil Baldwin (1995). Edison - Inventing the Century

Editha R. Martelino is the current president of the ADHD Society of the Philippines. A parent of two children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), she initiated and played an active role in the ADHD School Caravan, a public awareness campaign on the disorder. She is an AB Literature graduate of the University of Santo Tomas and is a writer by profession.