Friday, March 23, 2018

Managing ADHD In The Classroom

By Dennis Ward


Attention, Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is commonly experienced by children from a young age. It affects almost five percent of the population and is the most childhood behavior disorder. ADHD in the classroom can interfere with the performance of the child because of lack of concentration. These kids can also find it very difficult in making and keeping friends thus the teachers have to make sure that they assist the kids to concentrate in class.

The symptoms are either inattentive behaviors or hyperactive-impulsive behaviors. Children can have either of those, and some of them suffer from a combination of both. Some of the inattentive behaviors include making careless school work mistakes and overlooking details, easily distracted, difficulty in following instructions, problems with the organization of tasks, failure to finish school work among others.

On the other hand, symptoms associated with impulsive or hyperactive behavior are fidgeting, squirming and, problems with staying at one place for a long time. Talking excessively, impatience, climbing or running in inappropriate places. Unable to play quietly, intruding and interrupting discussions, conversations and games, blurting of answers before the end of a question and being super active all the time.

This disorder thus adversely affects the performance of these students in school because they are very inattentive. More so, these students can be so impulsive to the extent of leaving exams as well as tasks unfinished which explains their low performances. Also, teachers that do not know that these kids are suffering may often punish them because they fail to finish tasks or to disrupt the class.

For these children to be helped in class, the teacher must be aware of their condition and be willing to assist them. For instance, the teacher can make sure that the tasks given to these children are short and brief and require immediate feedback. If the projects are long, they should be broken down into parts that can easily be manageable at specific times.

Additionally, teachers should make sure that the instructions given to these students are short and direct. These kids need the attention of teachers more than the other students thus he/she should have a direct talk with them. This is because they have a very low concentration span making them lose detail often. Hence, if they can be assisted in this way, their performance can greatly improve.

More so, before the teachers step in the classrooms, they must make sure that they have planned, organized and structured their lesson very well. More so, the lecture outline should touch on all the important aspects. The reason behind this is that the ability of these kids or students to remember and memorize meaningfully structured lessons is very high, unlike unorganized lectures.

Rules that are given to the children with this disorder are supposed to be defined very well. They should also be reinforced often using visual cues and be very specific to help the children to have a higher memory. Many other teaching modes can be employed to assist these students so that their performance in school and even outdoor activities can be improved.




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