Saturday, April 7, 2018

Management Of 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.

The hyperactivity disorder is associated with occasional squirming or fidgeting in class.Unable to stay at a single place for quite some time, cannot be quiet while playing, interrupting other people and intruding in their conversations, being jumpy all the time and climbing places that are inappropriate, answering questions promptly even before the question is read out completely and many other related behaviors.

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.

The only way that the children with this disorder may be assisted is by informing teachers about their condition. The teacher will, in turn, ensure that he/she gives the kids short or brief tasks and require them to provide immediate feedback. In the event the tasks or projects are long and detailed, the teacher can break them down into short tasks that may be easily managed by these children.

Also, the children should be given direct instruction by the teachers. Because of their short attention span, the teachers should attend to the kids face to face as opposed to the other children. This will help the child to concentrate more and finish the tasks or assignments before they start squirming or talking too much. More so, their performance may also improve with time.

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.

To conclude, the students should also be given rules that are precise and well defined. These rules should be accompanied by visual codes that are specific so that they can easily remember. Many other modes of teaching are available for the teachers to use and assist kids who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to help them fit in a normal classroom setting.




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