Tag Archives: adhd & focus

ADHD & Focus, Focus Attention, Motivation, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

Helping Kids With ADHD Succeed In School

A child with ADHD doesn’t need to have difficulty in school. Here are five ways parents can help a child with ADHD succeed in school:

 

Create a routine for the child

Children with ADHD especially benefit from consistent structure.

Wake the child early enough so that mornings are not rushed. Allow time for a balanced breakfast and interacting with the family. Plan an after-school snacktime to refuel the child’s brain before tackling homework. Ensure that the child goes to bed early enough to get sufficient sleep.

 

Reinforce proper school time behavior

It is tempting to allow a child with ADHD to stand while doing homework and not do all the work at once or to zone out when he or she should be focused. However, it is important to replicate the school environment as closely as possible during homework time.

This reinforcement will help the child to understand what is expected of him or her at home and at school.

 

Be a resource, not a crutch

All kids need a little help with their homework every once in a while, but it is important to help and not hinder.

Doing a project for a child is hindering his or her learning. No matter how frustrated or distracted a child gets, it is important that he or she does homework mostly without parents’ assistance. Parents can help explain concepts and review work, but they should let the child work independently after that.

 

Reinforce appropriately

Parents should talk about how well a child solved a problem and praise the work and effort put into it. These are the things a child remembers when he or she works on another problem. It builds confidence and self–sufficiency.

 

Show that you are calm

Understand that children with and without ADHD can lose interest in lessons. Every kid gets a low grade every now and then. Parents should take a deep breath before reacting or getting too worried. This will also help the child not to overreact to a situation.

Parents are integral in helping a child with ADHD succeed in school. These steps will help such a child to be more successful in school.

 

ADHD & Focus, Misbehavior, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

What Acting-Out Means: Speaking Through the Veil of Autism

Does your child with a developmental or cognitive disability ever hurt themselves or others? Children with communications disorders, one way of looking at kids like mine who have developmental disabilities, may sometimes revert to the most basic forms of communication. If their needs are unmet, they may demonstrate their need by acting-out.

While training for certification as a Tactical Communications instructor with Verbal Defense & Influence, I learned that most speech is just sophisticated grunting, even for adults. On average, only 7% of our face-to-face communication is words and data.  The bulk of interpersonal communication, an average of 93%, is pure facial expression, other body language, and other nonverbal communication, like our tone and volume of voice (A. Mehrabian, 1971).

As neurotypical persons, we have all sorts of things in our nonverbal lexicon to communicate our needs. We say most of what we need to say just by our facial expression and eye contact. To specify, all we need then do is cross our arms and shiver to tell someone we’re cold. We can make a motion like drinking or eating to communicate those particular needs. If something hurts, we can wince in pain and point to affected area.  Children with developmental disabilities are limited in the language of nonverbal communication. Some may not have the natural ability to interpret nonverbal communication at all. And if they can’t understand it, then they can’t speak it either.

When kids with developmental disabilities act-out we need to search for the antecedent—what came before the action or what is presently causing them to act-out. Acting-out in all children is usually the outward sign of an unmet need. Slapping bare skin may mean they are cold, so try covering the area they are slapping. This sometimes works like magic! Biting self or others may simply mean they are hungry. I’ve seen spitting behaviors stop after giving a child a drink. Hitting, scratching or biting a body part may mean pain or discomfort in that location. Touching private parts often means toileting needs. Look for how your child is behaving just before they act-out and you may find a basis for future communication.

I have seen many examples where acting-out behaviors simply disappeared when kids were fed, covered up, or taken to the bathroom. I know one kid who put his head through a bus window for no apparent reason. When they checked his ears he turned out to have one heck an ear infection. Is that why he did it? Most of us who know him think that’s probably why.

Sometimes the cause of negative behaviors can be really sophisticated, like an irritation to certain fabrics. Changing their clothes can sometimes do the trick. Sometimes it’s just too much stimulation—too bright, too loud and too busy. Calm down the environment and see if your kid doesn’t calm down with it. As parents, we need to get good at anticipating needs, which wasn’t an easy task for me when my son was little. We should watch closely when our kids are acting-out. They are usually trying to tell us something and we have to participate in the conversation if we want to help them.

Joel Lashley is hospital security professional and trainer whose family needs and personal interests have led him to specialize in the care of children and adolescents with special needs. Please review his articles on http://www.CorrectionsOne.com. Joel can be contacted at joellashley@chw.or

ADHD & Focus, Focus Attention, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

What is ADD?

You just got the report from the school psychologist and you are confused and frustrated, what the heck is ADHD and how did my child end up with it? Rest assured that it was not something you did or didn’t do. More and more children are being diagnosed with ADD and ADHD on a daily basis and you would, in all likelihood, be surprised just how many children have it.

Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD)

ADD is a syndrome, which is characterized by serious and persistent difficulties in three key areas:

1. Attention Span
2. Impulse Control
3. Hyperactivity (Not All Cases)

ADD is a chronic disorder which often begins in a child’s infancy, and can extend through adulthood. All too often ADD can have negative effects on a child’s life at home, school and within his/her community. For reasons unknown to medical science, ADD disappears during adolescence in some students. There are two types of ADD:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Children with ADHD typically have eight or more of the following characteristics;

• Fidgets, squirms or seems restless.
• Has difficulty remaining still or quiet.
• Is easily distracted.
• Has difficulty waiting their turn.
• Blurts out answers.
• Has difficulty following instructions.
• Has difficulty sustaining attention.
• Shifts from one uncompleted task to another.
• Has difficulty playing quietly.
• Talks excessively.
• Interrupts or intrudes on others.
• Does not seem to listen.
• Often loses things necessary for tasks.
• Frequently engages in dangerous activities.

Try to remember that if your child is displaying these types of symptoms, it may be caused by a condition that is currently beyond their control and really cannot help themselves.

I don’t know about you but from what I’ve read on this list I probably would have been diagnosed with ADHD when I was a child. The big difference would be in that way my parents chose to deal with the problem. My parents would have given me a good spanking (I know there are no GOOD spankings) and I would have been warned not to continue that type of behavior. But when it is something that a child can’t control by himself then we, as parents, need to get involved and actively help our child deal with this disorder.

Undifferentiated Attention Deficit Disorder

In this form of ADD, hyperactivity is not present.  These children have some or all of the above symptoms, excluding those related to physical self-control.  This type of ADD is often undiagnosed as these children tend to be overlooked, simply because they are not “hyper”. They are often passive or quiet in nature and tend to be withdrawn.  Thus, these students are at a higher risk for failure, simply because they have no outward behavioral problems.

ADHD & Focus, Focus Attention, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

Causes of Attention Deficit Disorder

Researchers are unclear exactly what happens within the brain of an ADD child. Medical science is sure that ADD is caused by abnormalities in neurological function. Chemicals known as neurotransmitters are improperly balanced in an ADD child. The average person can automatically communicate thoughts from the left side to the right side of the brain.  This inner communication does not occur in an ADD child. Thus, these children have problems with attention, impulse control and activity level.

Although many ADD children tend to develop secondary emotional problems, ADD is not primarily an emotional disorder. However, emotional and behavioral problems can frequently be seen in ADD children due to the problems these students tend to have within their school, home and community.

The ADD, ADHD child is very often caught in a negative loop. They often fail in school, are rejected by peers, and are the center of a family’s turmoil. All of these lead to developmental delays and psychiatric complications caused from low self-esteem and frustration. With this downward cycle occurring, ADD can lead to poor social adjustment, behavioral problems, school failure, dropout and delinquency, and drug abuse.

American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., rev.) (DSM-IV-R). Washington, DC: APA.

“Merely watching someone else’s continuous movements will not allow me to mimic them–I have to have the steps broken down sequentially, much like how I must have explicit directions on how to get to a new place rather than trying to follow a continuous map.”

– Dr. Lars Perner (asst. professor clinical Marketing at Univ. of Southern California)