Chris Dendy
Also available: Handout with valuable notes.
One third of ADHD students will be fine when receiving medication, however two-thirds
will not improve significantly and will rely on more support. Experts don’t
agree on what Executive Functions are, however all agree that they impact academics
and behavior. 50% of ADD have Executive Function problems. Physical activity
may help prime the mental activity. This is why tapping and moving around is
not always a bad thing with ADD youngsters. It may be priming that mental pump.
A huge percentage (65%) of these kids have problems with essays and / or math.
[The speaker felt that an excellent Algebra resource for ADHD students was:
Brad Whitzell http://www.msalgebra.com. She commented that this was a great
program because it's concrete and user friendly.]
Dendy described the ADD brain as a brain with limited “counter space.”
That is the individual can only hold onto a small amount of information concurrently.
When they are asked to hold onto more, they get confused.
Teaching a ADD individual means providing organizational support as if they
are 3-4 years below grade level. (15 year old is 12),
Deschler (who is the keynote speaker at the Maine LDA conference in April) has
identified that teaching test taking skills improves scores 10 points.
Teaching math skills: paired learning works well. Have each child prepare a
practice problem requiring the skill being studied. Then pass it to a partner
and each solve the others problem.
This speaker has recently had developed cancer. She commented that Chemo therapy
can cause “chemo-brain” in some adults. That is, they lose their
working memories. Ritalin is now being given to adults to restore the working
memory and it works for some adults.[I believe she shared this to reinforce
her point about the usefulness (in some instances) of medication]
Be careful when assigning work. For some students, it is better to require a
homework response immediately rather than requesting a delayed response. A delay
to the required response adds a disability to the ADD child.
Many ADD children can’t estimate time.
In normal adults time can be planned for two months ahead of time.
In teens the limit is generally two days.
In ADD teens the limit is 12 hours.
Impact: Teach skills! If the child doesn’t have it, then
teach it. Don’t expect that any skill requiring organization, time estimation
(interim due dates), or planning, will be picked up unless it is taught directly.