RINE Final Summary: ADHD

AD/HD Final Research Journal Summary

The name Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or AD/HD, refers to a family of disorders which interfere with a person’s capacity to regulate their physical activity level (hyperactivity), inhibit their behaviour (impulsivity), and properly focus on tasks (inattention) (National Institute of Mental Health, 2000, in Rief, 2005, p. 4). The disorder has attracted controversy and has had its legitimacy questioned by some, who would reinterpret the problem behaviours exhibited by children with AD/HD as being simply energetic, lazy, naughty, and so on (Rief, 2005, p. 4). In spite of its detractors, the disorder has been identified as one of the most common additional needs in school-aged children, affecting between 2.3% and 6% of students (Krause, Bochner & Duchesne, 2003, p. 256). With such a high incidence rate, teachers can expect to teach approximately one student with AD/HD in every class. Therefore it is imperative that teachers are equipped to appropriately respond to this additional need.

Craig Wright offers several practical suggestions for accommodating students with AD/HD in an inclusive classroom environment. Students with AD/HD often experience deficient working memory and difficulty internalizing rules and expectations, so Wright recommends regular external reminders of school and classroom rules, such as with posters or other visual aids (Wright, 2006, p. 4). Wright also explains that working memory deficiency affects an individual’s perception of time, and as a result students with AD/HD often exhibit less goal-oriented behaviour. For educators, this may require a reevaluation of systems of long-term goals such as delayed rewards or large, ongoing assessment projects (Wright, 2006, p. 4). By breaking down tasks into smaller, more readily achievable components, we can scaffold a student with AD/HD’s eventual completion of the task. Similarly, when implementing behaviouralist rewards for behaviour, teachers should aim to minimize the time delay between the behaviour and the reinforcer (Wright, 2006, p. 4).

AD/HD can have a particularly detrimental effect on academic achievement when it impacts on a student’s literacy levels. Owing to their deficiency in working memory, many students with AD/HD experience difficulty reading, and comment that by the time they have read to the bottom of a page, they have forgotten what they had read at the top (Wright, 2006, p. 7). Wright recommends that students with AD/HD be explicitly taught “active reading” skills including strategies for note-taking, highlighting texts, making notes in margins and writing short summaries as they read (Wright, 2006, p. 7). Strategies such as these are useful study tools for all students, as are the above recommendations for posting class rules, breaking down tasks into smaller components, and establishing a strong link between behaviour and reinforcer when using positive and negative reinforcement for behaviour management (Wright, 2006, p. 4, and Krause et al., 2003. pp. 110-124).

Many of the above strategies for accommodating students with AD/HD in an inclusive learning environment fall under the framework of Universal Design for Learning (CAST). Scaffolding tasks by breaking them down into more management components, reinforcing rules and expectations, providing external motivation, encouraging “active reading”; these are all strategies that will benefit every student in any given class. Above all, ensuring lessons and tasks are interesting and engaging, thereby heightening a student with AD/HD’s state of arousal and hence their attention, is a goal teachers should be aspiring to wherever possible, and one which will benefit all students and provide a better quality educational experience (NSW DET, 2003, in McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 47).

Much of the literature surrounding AD/HD focuses on the early childhood and primary school years, with hopes that early intervention can minimize the disorder’s disruption in later life. However, as Noël Gregg asserts, the disorder is an enduring, life-long condition and requires ongoing efforts to accommodate it in secondary and tertiary settings. As a secondary school teacher, this is the domain in which I personally will encounter students with AD/HD. Gregg is particularly interested in the systemic discrimination in assessments for students with AD/HD; that is, how the formative and summative assessments that are commonly administered in secondary and tertiary education marginalize students with AD/HD.

Gregg has identified a number of areas in which students with AD/HD and related learning disorders are disadvantaged by secondary and tertiary education assessment structures. As the majority of high-stakes, standardized assessment in both America and Australia, such as college entrance exams, the HSC and NAPLAN are administered in an exam environment, they do not successfully accommodate students with AD/HD. These students’ reduced ability to focus on tedious tasks, as well as their lower inhibition, puts them at risk of underperforming in exam situations. However, reasonably simple accommodations could go a long way to inclusively assessing these students. They could be allowed regular breaks from exam conditions, or be able to sit the exams over multiple sessions; they could undertake exams in a less distracting environment or in an environment in which they are less likely to distract their neighbours. Other options are available for students with related and often co-morbid learning disabilities such as dyslexia, including providing a human or screen reader (Gregg, 2009, p. 232)

People with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder experience working memory deficiency, diminished inhibition and self control, and difficulty attending to tasks which do not provide adequate arousal. They have difficulty internalizing expectations, maintaining intrinsic motivation for tasks, and controlling impulsive behaviour. Students with AD/HD, and several other learning disabilities, benefit from a range of strategies for inclusion which fall within the Universal Design for Learning framework, meaning that teachers can accommodate their needs with methods that will benefit their entire class (CAST). Recasting medical descriptions of the disorder into considerations of its day-to-day impact, for example recognizing the impact of deficient working memory on activities such as reading and completing ongoing tasks, internalizing rules and expectations, and motivating goal-oriented behaviour, allows teachers to implement practical strategies to better include their students with AD/HD. These strategies include more structured scaffolding of tasks, breaking down projects into attainable chunks, reinforcing desirable behaviour, regular reminders of expectations, and explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies such as active reading. More research and consideration of inclusive assessment practices, especially in the secondary and tertiary fields, is required to improve inclusive education and, by extension, improve later life outcomes for adults with AD/HD.


Source List
Centre for Applied Special Technology (n.d.). What is Universal Design for Learning? Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html

Cherkes-Julkowski, M., Sharp, S., & Stolzenberg, J. (1997) Rethinking attention deficit disorders. Cambridge: Brookline Books.

Gregg, N. (2009) Adolescents and Adults with Learning Disabilities and ADHD: Assessment and Accommodation. New York: The Guilford Press.

Krause, K., Bochner, S., & Duchesne, S. (2003) Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching. Southbank: Thomson.

McLeod, J., & Reynolds, R. (2007) Quality Teaching for Quality Learning: Planning through Reflection. South Melbourne: Thomson Social Science Press.

Rief, S. (2005) How to reach and teach children with ADD/ADHD: practical techniques, strategies, and interventions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wright, C. (2006) "Practically Speaking: ADHD In The Classroom", Special Education Perspectives, 15(2), 3-8.

RINE Interim Summary: Teenage Pregnancy

The temptation when considering additional needs in education is to focus on diagnosable medical conditions: physical and intellectual disabilities, learning difficulties, behavioural disorders and so on. Attention is also paid to social and cultural needs, particularly for Indigenous students and learners from language backgrounds other than English; and for students from low socio-economic status families. The focus of this research summary is an additional need that hasn’t received very much attention in the Responding to Individual Needs in Education readings and course so far, despite its capacity to completely alter a student’s life and education. That additional need is pregnancy.

Our duty to provide an inclusive education extends to every student in our class, but for the pregnant student, I believe our duty extends even further than our own classroom. In the case of teenage pregnancy, we can provide an inclusive and supportive environment in which a pregnant teenager or young parent can continue their education, which studies have shown is a vital influencing factor on their own child’s education achievement in the future (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002, in Krause et al., 2003, p. 283). Therefore, by extending our students’ education and future career prospects, we can indirect influence their own children’s future as well.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 16 live births per 1000 girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen in 2007. This equates to over 10,000 mothers of secondary school age across Australia (ABS, 2009, from Clayden, 2009, p. 2). Statistics from the United Kingdom and the United States also reflect rises in teen pregnancy rates in those countries during the past few years (Viadero, 2010, & “Education”, 2009). Much of the literature I have seen so far has focused on possible means for prevention, mainly by reviewing the efficacy of sex education in secondary schools. While prevention is better than the cure, for the individual student what matters is not to focus on what should have happened; rather it is what to do from now on. The teacher of a pregnant teen must, as with all their students, cater to the needs of the student, both during the pregnancy and after the birth.

Clearly a teen pregnancy alters a student’s priorities significantly. Their career prospects and their motivation for completing their education may change; their absences will affect their academic achievement; their relationships with family will go through a turbulent and stressful time. Our task as teachers is to strive to continue our students’ engagement with the curriculum, maintain their motivation as much as possible, and “sell” the benefits of keeping up with their education to the student. Practically speaking, we may need to negotiate with the student and their family to implement an Individual Learning Plan, and create a new structure for their learning, such as facilitating flexible learning options such as studying from home after the birth.

I have commenced my research with a consideration of a school known in the ACT for its commendable program for pregnant teens and young parents. The Canberra College runs the “CCCares” program out of its Weston Campus. Currently approximately eighty-five percent of the College’s Weston Campus student population are young parents (www.canberrac.act.edu.au, 2010). The school offers transportation to and from school for the students and their children, on-site childcare, play rooms, sleep rooms, change rooms, a medical suite and play areas designed to accommodate the students’ children in an open-plan and inclusive environment. The students can complete their Year 12 certificates, or work towards achieving goals established in Individual Learning Plans. CCCares is a commendable benchmark program which anticipates the future needs of its parenting students and has created an holistic approach to their education. It incorporates not only traditional educational objectives such as literacy and numeracy, but develops personal skills and attributes to prepare students for the employment market, providing vocational training, and aiming to assist students to become financially independent.

Not all schools have the necessary population of pregnant and parenting students to create such an impressive support framework; nor would they wish to have it so. From an economic perspective, many of the auxiliary supports provided by CCCares are out of reach for the average secondary school. However, its ethos and intentions are absolutely transportable, and aspects of its program can be implemented within other schooling environments. These aspects are to be the focus of this research journal.

Source List

Canberra College, 25 May, 2010, http://www.canberrac.act.edu.au/curriculum/cccares

Clayden, Peter. “Using the power of partnership to address important educational and social welfare needs”, Canberra College, 2009, http://www.canberrac.act.edu.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0019/122239/CCCares_Schools_First_conference_article_2010.doc

Flood, M., Greenspan, S., & Mundorf, N. (1985) School-Based Services for Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents. Special Services in the Schools, 2(1), 27-44. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J008v02n01_03

Krause, Kerri-Lee, Sandra Bochner, and Sue Duchesne. (2003) Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching. Victoria: Thomson Learning

Viadero, D. Study Finds Teen Pregnancies On The Rise. Education Week 2010, 29(20), 4. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=48135020&site=ehost-live

Teenage pregnancy rate rises for the first time in ten years. (2009) Education 2009 (345), 1. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=36919545&site=ehost-live