Teaching Students With ADHD

Attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common childhood behavior disorders. Students with ADHD are naturally restless, inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive. They are intellectually as smart as other kids except for their inability to focus on a task at hand. Teaching such kids requires certain skills coupled with tons of patience. There are some helpful measures and techniques that have been developed over the years for teachers of students with ADHD.

Here are three main measures that should be implemented in a class with ADHD students. These are:

• Accommodation: Implementing changes that make it easier for students with ADHD to learn.
• Instruction: Tweaking the teaching methods.
• Intervention: Tackling disruptive behavior of students with ADHD in the best way possible.

Let’s break them up and look at how they can make teaching kids with ADHD more effective:

• A teacher can bring about some useful changes in the learning environment to reduce distractions and disruptions caused by ADHD. Teachers can change the seats of students with ADHD by shifting them away from windows and doors, making them sit at the front desk and resorting to an arrangement whereby they can sit around a table instead of the conventional row seating.
• A few changes can be made in the style of delivering information to the students. Instructions should be repeated. Students should be encouraged to use charts, pictures, color coding, etc.
• Worksheets and tests should be short and precise. Students should be tested on what they do best to keep them motivated and engaged. Long-term projects should be divided into segments that are easier to accomplish within short durations. Make sure that you give them credit for even partial and late work. The whole point is to keep the students motivated.
• Helping students with ADHD in being organized in the classroom can have tremendous effect on their performance. Encourage them to keep a master binder with separate sections for different subjects, teach them how to color code their work, write their assignments, note important dates, organize their materials and so on.
• Maintain a positive and engaged body language by establishing eye contact with the students, start a class by discussing what’s going to be learnt and help them prepare material for the same.
• While teaching, use lots of visual aids, audio cues, props, charts, competitive games, rapid and intense activities, unobtrusive cues, etc. Avoid putting the student in a spot by asking questions publicly and also provide them frequent breaks.
• End a lesson effectively by summarizing the key points learnt & by making the students reading their assignments aloud.