• Babies
• Building a Family
• Children
• General Parenting
• Newborns
• Teenagers
• Toddlers
• Pregnancy

Educational Strategies for Children with ADD

Nix assembly line learning

Educational Strategies for Children with ADD My boyhood buddy, Spook, was a man of many talents. By the age of fifteen, he was famous across west Texas for his talent as a horse trainer. He was a horse whisperer who had a way with both mustangs and Mustangs. Spook was good with horsepower too. I swear he kept my 1947 Plymouth running with a pair of pliers and baling wire.

For all his varied skills, Spook wasn't much good with numbers. One of the reasons we got to be such good friends was that my father helped Spook with his algebra homework almost every night. My buddy was a genius when it came to working with things he could put his hands on, but he could never get either his hands or his mind around concepts like x + y = z.

It frustrated him no end, but I remember my father telling him, "Spook, you aren't stupid or dumb, you just learn differently than the others. And you might even want to be proud of that fact." My father was a wise man. He helped Spook get through algebra, and last I heard, my buddy was working as a county judge.

Children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder whose symptoms are related to neurological problems are not dumb or stupid either. Like Spook, they simply learn in different and unique ways. But they too must find patient and willing teachers who understand their challenges. ADD students learn differently because their brains operate on more limited frequencies. They don't respond well to the regimented approaches typically used in a classroom of mainstream students.

The parents of an ADD child have to be vigilant in monitoring their child's education. Your child will likely have more than thirty different teachers in his school career. It is up to you to make certain that his teachers are aware that ADD presents special challenges but also opportunities for innovative teaching. Most teachers have received some training for dealing with students with ADD, but because teachers generally have to deal with a roomful of young people, they tend to go with what works for the majority of them. The parents of the student must make sure he gets the special attention and assistance he needs to learn.

Because of the challenges students with ADD present to most public school systems, more and more of their parents appear to be turning to homeschooling. In the parent groups I work with, virtually every one who has had a child finish high school advocates homeschooling instead of public school. Not every family has the resources to do this, of course. And not every parent is suited to the role of teacher, especially day in and day out.

But whether you wish to homeschool your child or send him to a public or private school, it is important that you understand how his mind works and the best and most efficient ways he learns. I've found that most children with ADD learn best when family members are involved in their education, whether as teachers or as backup tutors.

Special Needs Vs. the Assembly Line
Most public school teachers will tell you that today they are saddled with having to teach for mandatory progress tests required by school systems. These requirements and the ever-growing number of students in their classrooms have robbed teachers of the little time they once had to give special attention to individuals with special needs. Sadly, children with ADD don't do well at all in assembly-line educational systems. Because they demand extra attention and cause disruptions, they are often seen as threats to quality control by those teachers who are under intense pressure to make on-time delivery of their students to the next stage of the process. I am not being facetious.

A superintendent of schools in a Texas school district set up an elaborate televised teaching system for each classroom. The videotaped curriculum is standardized for high test scores. Teachers serve as little more than monitors.

This mass production approach to education presents an enormous challenge to the ADD child and his parents. Instead of working with children's special needs and teaching to their highest expectations, teachers lower the bar, which further lowers the self-esteem of vulnerable ADD children. These children can learn and thrive, but only if they are taught in a manner suited to their needs.

Motor and memory problemsFive Bridges for Teaching over Neurological Gaps
Children and adults with ADD have neurological gaps that interfere with the cognitive processes of memory, concentration, and attention span. Their more limited brain functions also affect muscular coordination and mental energy. Teachers, then, have to deal with

• ineffective motor output
• insufficient memory
• weak production control
• low mental energy
• language dysfunction

Ineffective Motor Output
When children are referred for possible neurological problems, one of the common assessment tools is for them to draw geometric figures, such as a circle, a square, and a diamond. The delay in fine motor development becomes apparent in the drawings of these simple figures. In fact, this is probably the most telling test. Some of the distortions come from the fact that the children's internal visual perceptions are distorted (this is usually related to learning disabilities). Many of these children cannot draw anything resembling a circle or a square because of the lack of fine motor dexterity in their hands. This lack of motor control reflects the neurological confusion of coordination, pacing, and planning required in every subject in school.

Most of us don't give much thought to the neurological complexities involved in drawing simple figures and forming letters, but they are tremendous. For the child with ADD, it takes trial and error with lots of patience to reach that level of coordination. The operative word is patience. Even mainstream first-graders have difficulty learning their ABCs at first. The learning process involves training the brain, or grooving a neurological sequence.

Children with ADD can do this, but they must be allowed to do it slowly because of their slower neurological processes. It works to give them some paper and have them trace the letters over and over again, letting them examine their own work, and encouraging them to do it better and better. It is best not to make this a quantitative exercise, so that they have to write two hundred a's and two hundred b's. Make it a pride exercise; let them determine when they have accomplished the task of writing their letters right, with the hope of instilling a source of accomplishment.

Practice is the best teacher for students with ADD. Don't put time limits on them, and allow them, to work in informal settings too. Try to stress the fun and pleasure of creating something beautiful.

Insufficient Memory
Memory is a neurological function. Some people have greater capacities than others, but to a certain extent, memory capacity can be improved with exercises and even a few tricks. If you really wanted to, you could learn to remember every name in the phone book, or the birth dates of everyone you know. It doesn't take genius. Yet children with ADD often beat themselves up for having poor memories in the mistaken belief that they'll never be able to do any better.

Memory training is based on the physiology of brain function. The brain requires oxygen to function and memory is influenced by how much oxygen you have circulating around the bloodstream. But the symptoms of ADD tend to limit oxygen flow. Children and adults under stress don't breathe deeply. They also tense their muscles. Both of those behaviors withhold oxygen from the brain and, when done habitually, limit memory capacity. That is why it is important for ADD students to learn in a relaxed setting.

Learn to relax; learn to take stepsLearn to Relax, Relax to Learn
Step One
The deeper your child breathes, the better his memory will be--as long as he doesn't take it too far and hyperventilate. Tell your child to think of it in this manner: your breath is the fuel of memory, and the more you relax and breathe, the more you can remember. I have taught kids this strategy and their test scores consistently go up at least ten points.

Step Two
Instruct the child to use all of his oxygen fuel to focus on what he needs to remember. If the stored information does not automatically come back, have him think of all the associated information that goes with it. For example, if he is trying to remember the date Kennedy was shot, think of everything else that was going on during that era, like the Cuban missile crisis or the civil rights movement. Memory associations are a great trick for learning. Children can teach themselves to remember things even by associating the study material with the clothes they are wearing or the food they are eating as they study. Muscle memory can be taught in the same way. I had a friend who was a pastor, and the last four digits of his phone number were 8-2-4-6. When you dial them, you make a cross pattern. I never memorized the numbers because my muscles were trained to make a cross when I wanted to call him.

It also is helpful for ADD students, and most others too, to write down material that must be stored in the brain. When you write something down, it engages your muscle memory too. Confession: in high school, I tried to cheat in my physics class by writing down all the formulas on a small piece of paper that I was going to sneak into the test. The formulas were long and I had trouble fitting them on a small enough piece of paper. I had to rewrite them several times, smaller and smaller each time. By the time I had perfected my tiny writing, I didn't need the cheat sheet. I had the formulas memorized!

Reading material out loud is also very helpful when a child is trying to remember something, perhaps because he is committing it to muscle memory too. My recommendation is to entice your child to talk through problem solving in math too.

Weak Production Control
Production control is how you show what you know. Many times I hear children with ADD explain that they know the answers, but they just don't know how to express them. This is the result of cognitive limitations that cause poor organization skills. It's especially intimidating for ADD children to express complex thoughts, so they often rush the process, trying to tell all they know at once.

When I was in high school I worked part-time for my father as a mechanic's assistant, mostly as a brake specialist. I was supervised by Dud, a wise man--in spite of his nickname--who laughed at my many mistakes. Like the typical ADD child, I'd get nervous and try to rush through a process that required a step-by-step approach.

"Frank, you try to do everything at once," Dud once told me. "There is a beginning and an ending, with steps in between. Try that and see what happens."

The lesson for students with ADD is to divide any task--whether it's a brake job or a homework assignment--into parts: a beginning, a second part, and so forth, until the end. This applies to reading, spelling, writing, and math problems. It might be helpful to remind your child of the best way to eat an elephant: one piece at a time.

Instruct your child to approach an assignment by first thinking of the steps that he must go through. It might help to craft a story around the problem. This can be fun and it will help in understanding as well as production. This is called the Socratic method of teaching, after the Greek teacher Socrates. He used to engage in dialogue and questions so that his students would learn to think in methodical ways. This is the best way to teach a child with a diagnosis of ADD. It offers the opportunity to expand the possibilities while allowing the student to exercise problem-solving skills.

Brain stimulationLow Mental Energy
Often ADD children will begin a task with great enthusiasm that quickly fades into fatigue. One of my patients, Nancy, did well in her morning classes and made good grades but was failing in her afternoon classes. Another patient, Frances, had the opposite problem. She was an afternoon person, who did poorly in morning classes and excelled later in the day.

We all have highs and lows in mental energy, and these patterns are fairly consistent for each one of us. Some of us are morning people, who arise each day in a chipper mood, bright-eyed and ready to learn. Others are night people, who don't come alive until after sunset. Scientists refer to these energy cycles as circadian rhythms and brain research has verified their existence.

Unfortunately most elementary and high schools don't offer both day and night shifts. Even normal teens tend to be night people because of hormone flows associated with adolescence. ADD children tend to have fluctuating cycles that add to their learning challenges. Their energy ebbs and flows in high peaks and low valleys. It is difficult for them to sustain mental energy throughout an entire school day.

One of the best solutions to the fluctuating energy levels of ADD kids is teenage torment. The teen is not tortured, but the people around him might be. I want to break this to parents gently, but there is no gentle way to say it: the blaring music your ADD child plays might be just what this doctor would order. As I've noted earlier, ADD kids instinctively try to stimulate their sluggish brain activity in a number of ways that are often judged to be antisocial, irrational, and dangerous by others. Risky behavior is one such behavior. And playing blaring music with heavy bass and drumbeats is another.

The brain is stimulated by these forms of music. When your ADD child listens to music while studying, it may well be helpful to him. It energizes his neurotransmitters even as it drives you and the neighbors bananas.

I've got more shocking news. Chewing gum is another way for an ADD child to stimulate his brain, though you don't have to tolerate him leaving it on the bedpost overnight. Chewing, leg bouncing, foot tapping, and other repetitive and rhythmic behaviors are all typical ways that ADD kids try to self-stimulate their lethargic brains. The explanation is interesting. A substance called collagen connects each tissue in the body, and when a person moves, tensions set up within this fabric of the body create electrical charges. This is called the piezoelectric effect. The individuals are supercharging their brains by pumping up their mental energy. This mechanism also explains why physical exercise aids in problem solving and memory.

Body postures can stimulate emotional states too. In our research, we asked college students to assume a slouched posture common to depressed individuals for a period of ten minutes. After that period, each reported feelings of depression regardless of his mood prior to the test. There is a scientific explanation for this. Crystalline components located at the ends of the muscles radiate electromagnetic signatures that signify imbalances in body chemistry that are communicated through emotions, such as depression. We found other postures that produce emotional states, including the "victory" posture, in which a person sticks out the chest and chin and flings the arms back. This gives a feeling of elation.

It is believed that children with ADD actually benefit from getting up and moving around in class--even though it normally would bring a reprimand from a teacher. The posture typically assumed while sitting in a classroom is probably detrimental to learning for an ADD child because of the emotional state it puts him in. When a child's shoulders are stooped and his head is down, the chest cavity is compressed, inducing lethargy in ADD children. We've demonstrated to teachers that when they allow the ADD kids to move around more freely, it helps them learn.

The power of wordsLanguage Dysfunction
In studies of criminals and other antisocial personalities, one of the most consistent personality attributes is these individuals' difficulty in expressing their emotions verbally. It is believed that they act out their emotions through violence and risky behavior to compensate for their inability to express those feelings verbally.

In my anger management therapy classes, we often note that the participants have limited vocabularies. When we give those in the program words or phrases that help them express their feelings verbally, it often dissipates their anger without violence. Children with ADD have similar problems because of their reduced vocabularies. In fact, some studies have found that more than 50 percent of those convicted of violent crimes or antisocial behavior have been diagnosed with ADD.

The good news is that ADD kids also benefit from therapies that improve their ability to express themselves. The power of words can be amazing. I learned that back in the third grade. The school bully was harassing me one day and we were squared off in the school yard. Kids were crowded around us hoping to see a fight. My older sister was in the crowd. She came to my rescue but in a very interesting way. As the bully and I circled each other, she peppered him with questions: "You look pretty pissed to me, all right. You look pretty mean to me, so I guess you are going to beat the stuffin' out of my little brother, right?"

The bully did not take his eyes off me, but he spoke to her. "No, I ain't pissed. I'm just messing with him."

This was welcome news to me. It was such a relief, I couldn't help but offer a spontaneous wisecrack. "Well, I guess I will consider I have been messed with, and now we can do something else."

The bully got a kick out of that. "I guess you can say you have been messed with, then." We all laughed. End of conflict.

From that point on, whenever he messed with me, I'd announce that he'd accomplished his purpose of scaring me, and that was all it took.

Years later, I saw another example of the healing power of words when my colleague Richard Wall taught elderly women patients dealing with depression to vent their anger with curse words. They took to it like marines, but only within the confines of his office, where the walls fairly shook with the words of foulmouthed matrons. It was quite a sight, and quite a sound too. And it worked. Words do have power, and given the power, children and adults can find paths to their potentials.

Innovative Teaching Gifts
I've learned other creative methods for stimulating the minds of students with ADD from innovative teachers I've met over the years. I was raised by teachers, so I respect them deeply. Some of the most dedicated people I've ever met were on the faculty at the public school in Andrews, Texas, where I had my first teaching assignment after college. The principal, Vernon Payne, had a teaching staff of naturals. They had the training but much of what they did was instinctive. I marveled at their skills. They were excited about their students' potential. No student lacked for attention at that school. And in my three years there, I never saw a student fail. Below are a few of the innovative methods for students with ADD that I learned from teachers there and around the country.

Token reward system; multiple sensory learningToken Rewards/Big Returns
This is a reinforcement method in which students are given a token of redeemable value for appropriate and productive behavior. One of the steps in this procedure is to break down the desired behavior into small parts so that the individuals will learn in increments. For example, if you wanted to use tokens such as dimes for reading behavior, you might want to begin the procedure by rewarding your child first for just looking at a book as the first step. After the child is rewarded for that, the next step might be to reward him for reading the first page, then the first five pages, ten pages, and so on. The final reward would be for answering questions to test for comprehension.

This approach is very effective for ADD children, in part because the step-by-step approach to tasks works well with children who have difficulty focusing on the big picture. The system of incremental rewards also works well in building a sense of accomplishment for children with low levels of confidence and self-esteem.

I've also seen this method used successfully for group therapies for ADD children. They were divided up into small groups and given tokens redeemable at the local music store. This not only increased student productivity and built self-esteem, it also fostered greater teamwork among ADD kids, who generally do not perform well in group situations.

I highly recommend the use of a token reward system for teaching ADD children. So often these kids feel isolated. They are also highly self-critical. Imagine the consistent frustration of never completing a project or being rewarded for a good job. These children are often battered emotionally because their ADD symptoms get them in trouble. The token reward system makes learning much more enjoyable for them. It is not the value of the tokens; it is the recognition of a step forward. And it is the underlying message that says, "We care."

Multiple Sensory Learning
The more of the five senses used in learning, the better and faster the process. Research shows that if a class is presented with a subject orally, the learning rate is only 17 percent. But if that material includes a visual presentation, the learning rate increases dramatically to 75 percent. If the material is acted out with the participants speaking dialogue, the learning rates increase to 95 percent.

Because of the neurological gaps experienced by a child with ADD, multiple sensory learning is a vital tool. A child's ability to comprehend and learn increases dramatically when teachers use methods employing a variety of visual, audible, kinesthetic (body-movement), and even smelly exercises. Who can forget the rotten egg experiments in chemistry class?

One of the research teaching methods we've tried used lemons, oranges, and cinnamon as memory enhancement tools. There was no inherent relationship between the words to be memorized and the fruits, but we had the students associate each word with a particular smell as the items were presented. If a series of eight words was to be repeated, such as chair, cat, weather, pliers, man, picture, coat, and yellow, a picture of each item was presented on a slide projector as the students were given a taste of a particular fruit. Not surprisingly, the students performed at a higher rate.

A common lament among critics of education is that teachers are not adequately rewarded for innovation. But teachers who use innovative methods with ADD kids are rewarded by the fact that their students often become much more attentive and cooperative in class. Teaching them with a multiple sensory approach has enormous benefits, regardless of the age of the student.

During my public school days as a math teacher, I would bring blocks of wood of various sizes to the class and distribute them to the students. I would use these blocks as audiovisual aids to present lessons on fractions, ratios, geometry, and quadratic equations. I also used apples, which I'd cut up for early discussions of calculus. Since my classroom had been a choir room, I even brought in a piano and used chord progressions to discuss number series and hierarchical equations. These were average seventh- and eighth-grade students with the usual array of behavioral issues and distractions, but I was able to teach them college-level material because I engaged their brains with all sorts of materials. I know my methods worked because I tested the students for specific knowledge. And my class scored, on average, in the ninetieth percentile on the achievement tests. Let's hear it for wood blocks and apple slices!

Pre-class exercises; positive reinforcementPump Up the Class
All students benefit from regular exercise but ADD kids in particular need to be physically active to keep the blood flowing to their brains. I recommend three key exercises, borrowed from martial arts training, before each class. These exercises help the brain ramp up, which enhances attention span and focus. The steps are based on common sense, but young people enjoy the martial arts ritual. Some teachers even award colored belts for classroom concentration.

Begin these exercises by having your ADD students do relaxation therapies like deep breathing. Instruct them to make themselves comfortable and then to focus on an object or particular space on a wall. Have them focus their energy and mental focus on their beating hearts. I tell students that the heart is the source of pure energy, devoid of fear or anxiety, and it is a powerful tool.

After about three minutes, I have the students do a few muscle stretching exercises. The exact exercises are not critical, as long as the arms, legs, and back get some attention. My favorite is what I call the flower awakening. I use music for this. Everyone starts curled up on the floor, and slowly stretches out the arms and neck as if she is a flower growing from the floor and reaching for sunshine or rain. Eventually the students stand and extend their arms and legs. They also bend and stretch according to their own needs. Some of these movements become humorous. Laughter is encouraged. It is stimulating too.

The stretching period should take about three minutes. The next phase is toning exercise. The students are asked to hum a tone (or even a song) that wakes up the brain. They try to find a tone that causes vibrations in their heads. The room may sound like a beehive within minutes. That's OK if they are breathing and concentrating on their empowerment. These physical exercises eat up a little class time but they pay dividends in increased focus and energy.

Love and Learning
The best teachers find ways to reach all their students. The family is a valuable part of the teaching and educational process, both in imparting direct instruction and in sharing values. In particular, an ADD student needs to learn these things from family members:

• They love and respect him.
• They have faith in him.
• They support him at all times.
• They are interested in his feelings and thoughts.
• They value academic progress as a positive tool for the student.
• They are willing to help.

ADD students need to know these things and they need to hear them repeated to them--every day. Hang them on the refrigerator, slip notes in their books and lunch boxes. The greatest contribution a family can make to an ADD child is to let him know that his parents and siblings are in his corner at all times.