Struggles with reading, writing, and math are common among students with ADHD. Use these strategies and tools to help your child overcome these and other learning challenges in core school subjects.
Children with ADHD struggle more with boredom and putting mental effort into challenging tasks. Virtual learning or in-person school with more rules may lack the novelty and excitement. Teachers may need to find new ways to keep children with ADHD from being bored and keep them engaged in learning.
ADHD causes kids to be more inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive than is normal for their age. ADHD makes it harder for kids to develop the skills that control attention, behavior, emotions, and activity. As a result, they often act in ways that are hard for parents manage.
The students with ADHD also performed better in certain subject areas than those without ADHD. These included the arts, creative writing, science discovery, and architecture. (Their achievement was self-reported.)
Adults with ADHD may find it difficult to focus and prioritize, leading to missed deadlines and forgotten meetings or social plans. The inability to control impulses can range from impatience waiting in line or driving in traffic to mood swings and outbursts of anger.
As you know, one trademark of ADHD is low levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine — a chemical released by nerve cells into the brain. Due to this lack of dopamine, people with ADHD are "chemically wired" to seek more, says John Ratey, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
All types of ADHD may include weaknesses in executive functioning. Thus, children with ADHD are more likely to have problems getting started on things, and have difficulty with planning, problem-solving, and time management.
Students who are affected by ADHD often have a hard time with math because their memory is not very strong and blocking out external stimuli is a struggle. Memory, which is where information is stored for later use, is one of many executive functions.
These may include hyperfocus, resilience, creativity, conversational skills, spontaneity, and abundant energy. Many people view these benefits as “superpowers” because those with ADHD can hone them to their advantage. People with ADHD have a unique perspective that others may find interesting and valuable.
When we feel like we are constantly unable to do tasks asked of us, it can lead to feelings of anxiety and worthlessness, which can lead to a meltdown, too. Meltdowns may occur when deep breaths and time-outs aren't working and angry outbursts are imminent ? .
ADHD can affect a student's ability to focus, pay attention, listen, or put effort into schoolwork. ADHD also can make a student fidgety, restless, talk too much, or disrupt the class. Kids with ADHD might also have learning disabilities that cause them to have problems in school.
Processing verbal information presents challenges for individuals with ADHD. Children with this condition often miss important facts while conversing because their brains can't filter out external distractions. This can cause them to misinterpret the situation and become confused or reactive.
Very structured schools are great at helping keep kids with ADHD organized and focused throughout the school day, but when that structure isn't available at home, disruptive behavior can be a consequence.
Disorganization: Disorganization can make it hard for people with ADHD to study or prioritize tasks. It can also cause them to miss deadlines and forget schoolwork, affecting grades. Impulsivity: ADHD can cause impulsive behavior — this can lead to a student getting into trouble at school.
Does ADHD affect IQ? A popular misconception is that all children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are naturally smarter and have a higher IQ than children without ADHD. However, there is no correlation between this condition and intelligence.
Children with ADHD often struggle with math. Difficulties with sustained attention, working memory (manipulating numbers in your head), organization and planning all interfere with math learning and performance.
Because the ADHD brain habituates to stimuli very quickly, it can be difficult to maintain attention to repetitive tasks, like, say, practicing math facts. In fact, kids with ADHD sometimes get less accurate the better they have their facts memorized.
In general, children with ADHD are right-brained learners. They prefer to learn visually — by watching or doing a task in an activity-based, hands-on format, not by listening to lectures, practicing drills, or memorizing.
There is no scientific data to suggest that children with ADHD are more intelligent nor creative. Their impulsivity may result in their being quicker to offer suggestions and ideas and in some circumstances, this may result in adults perceiving them as more creative.
Channing Tatum is one of the most widely recognized celebrities. He also happens to be an actor who has publicly shared his struggles with ADHD during his childhood and how his struggles at school affected him. In fact, he continues to work through related difficulties as an adult.
It's a real thing, called misophonia — the dislike or even hatred of small, routine sounds, such as someone chewing, slurping, yawning, or breathing. It's often an ADHD comorbidity. Similar to ADHD itself, misophonia is not something we can just get over if only we tried harder.
ADHD is not on the autism spectrum, but they have some of the same symptoms. And having one of these conditions increases the chances of having the other. Experts have changed the way they think about how autism and ADHD are related.