Friday, March 30, 2018

How To Manage 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 makes the kids be very poor performers in school due to lack of attention. Additionally, this disorder can make the kids leave assignments, tasks or exams unfinished hence the reason for failure. More so, they tend to face a lot of disciplinary actions especially when teachers are unaware of the condition. Therefore these kids will be punished because of making noise in class or failure to finish assignments.

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.

To add on that, teachers should give direct instructions to the children. Therefore, they should work with kids one on one. Unlike the other children, the concentration span for these children is so low thus teachers must be especially attentive to them. If they are helped in this way, they will improve their performance because they will have more concentration.

On top of that, teachers must ensure that they organize and structure their lessons well before they go to the classrooms. This is because having a good outline can help the students to understand quickly. More so, these students usually have the good memory of materials that have been meaningfully structured. Therefore, it is upon teachers and tutors to ensure that they organize their lessons well.

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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