ADHD Characteristics Description Marya Puttkammer SPED 445

Identifying ADHD ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Teachers should monitor their students at all times. Students with ADHD in high school may “develop low-self esteem, frustration, academic underachievement, even failure, and social isolation” if it goes unrecognized and untreated. ADHD can be recognized in students if they are not focusing, turns in messy work that was probably rushed or incomplete work or work with many errors, blurts out answers before question is completed, assignments may be misplaced most of the time (resource 1).

Characteristics Inattentive – teens tend to get distracted easily, forget what they learned or to do homework assignments, cannot concentrate, has unrelated thoughts Overactive – teens may fidget, excessive talking, cannot sit still when required, tries to do more than one thing Impulsive - interrupt teachers or classmates, disruptive classroom behaviors, blurts out answers quickly, difficulty thinking before acting Disorganized – misplacing assignments, messy work Irritability – frustrations and stressing out from trying to learn, cannot wait turns (Resource 1, 2)

Accommodations Seating – students with ADHD gets easily distracted and lose focus. They should be seated away from doors, windows, distracting students and items like a pencil sharpener. The student should sit a place that is quiet, close to the teacher, a place where he or she can only focus on the teacher when she is talking, and perhaps sit by a good role model student (Resource 3). Assignments – students with ADHD should be given less workload. Over load of work can cause frustration. Students should also be given more time in complete their work so they can take their time to neatly and answer all questions (Resource 3). Students should also have a study buddy to help him complete some work and to understand materials better (Resource 5).

Accommodations Visuals and activities – lessons should have visuals and activities for the students to be interactive. Students will lose focus if lessons were just lectures. Showing visuals and doing activities will get the students to be motivated and be able to move around to do hands-on activities (Resource 3). Taking notes – students should take notes when teachers are giving lectures either by words or drawings. Teachers can hand out copy of class notes with blanks where they can fill out. Teachers should cue the students of key points and words that should be written in the blanks. Teachers could also audio tape lectures for students to listen again (Resource 3). Teachers should also recommend students to use colored highlighter to takes notes, each color symbolizes something (definitions, important, etc.) (Resource 5).

Accommodations Organization – students with ADHD are disorganized and messy. Teachers can teach students organization by asking the students to write down homework assignments in planner and have dividers in binders to organize assignments or related subjects. Teachers can give out formats of how an assignment should be completed, and they can also put due dates on the assignments. Students also be given a checklist to see where he or she is at (Resource 4).

Question What is your opinion of medicating students who have ADHD? Explain your point of view. I am sort of against medicating students with ADHD because some of the drugs do not work. Students will have to try each medication to see which one actually works, but in taking different medication just to find the right one for them might do harm to the body, espeically when some medication have side effects. Also it doesn’t seem to be the students choice in taking it. It sounds like there are forced to take it so they can be calm and concentrate in school work to pass and graduate. I believe there could be other ways beside medication in calming students and to be able to focus on things. Also, if they are taking medication, students are not themselves. It sounds like people are taking away their identity or who they are. Some ADHD have creative minds but people thinks it’s affecting their school work and all. It may help students but I don’t think it’s natural and safe..

Question What are your thoughts about the "Tonsillectomy of the 21st Century"? I thought it was pretty interesting. It is kind of sad drugging the students just because they have ADHD. The drugs may help the students, but I really think that natural activities such as having PE and having well instructed hands on activity can help ADHD to be themselves in well mannered way. It can perhaps help them to relax and think things through, and concentrate. Teachers should somehow find a way to interest the students about a topic. In someway that is fascinating and eye catching. Drugging students can make them feel not like themselves, perhaps be more like a robot, just concentrate but not be able to be creative and have interesting ideas. People think that if they find one way to help someone, they seem to stick with that for a long period of time until they find something reasonable and safer way which probably develop not in a near future.

Resource 1 "Your Adolescent - Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)." American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2010. Web. 06 Feb. 2013 <http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/publication_store/your_adolescent_attention_deficit/hyperactivity_disorder_adhd>. Gives an overview of what ADHD is and states the identification in ADHD for toddlers and adolescents. This site is for everyone who has no knowledge in ADHD, and is a good start to look in knowing.

Resource 2 "Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)." American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Web. 06 Feb. 2013 <http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/adhd.htm>. This site is for parents and teachers and anyone who encountered ADHD and wants to know about it. It talks about what ADHD is, its characteristics, the causes and other information. Simple information for everyone to understand.

Resource 3 "Helping Students With ADHD - Section 504 Accommodations." About.com ADD/ADHD. About.com. Web. 06 Feb. 2013 <http://add.about.com/od/schoolissues/a/Helping-Students-With-Adhd-Section-504-Accommodations_2.htm>. This site sounds mainly for teachers, but perhaps parents too. It talks about the accommodations/modifications in school for students (teens) with ADHD. Listed many examples and very detailed.

Resource 4 Nadeau, Kathleen G. "High School Is Tough When You Have ADD (ADHD), but You Can Make It Easier..." ADDvance. Web. 06 Feb. 2013 <http://www.addvance.com/help/teens/high_school.html>. This site talks more to the students with ADHD, and how they can improve in high school. It gives tips of how teachers should be and how they should support the students. It also helps the teachers to be prepared for ADHD students and how they can help them in learning.

Resource 5 The New York Times. "Helping the Teenager With A.D.H.D." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Feb. 2011. Web. 06 Feb. 2013 <http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/helping-the-teenager-with-a-d-h-d/>. This article is for parents who has a child with ADHD. It has some life story of parents with ADHD child, child struggling in school. A doctor helps the parents by giving advice to them. It also seems like it helps teachers in what they could do to teach the ADHD students.