SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Coping with ADHD

The American Federation of Teachers publishes an excellent quarterly magazine called American Educator. The jewel in the magazine’s crown is the regular column by Dan Willingham, a professor of cognitive psychology and neuroscience at the University of Virginia. In each issue, Dr. Willingham tackles a different topic of interest to classroom teachers and parents, such as reading comprehension, memory, practice, and praise. For example, the Winter 2004/2005 column deals with ADHD. In addition to explaining what the disorder is and how to recognize it, Dr. Willingham lists six effective steps that classroom teachers can take to help their ADHD students get the most out of school. As an added bonus, many of these strategies will likely prove helpful to non-ADHD students as well.

• Make changes to the environment to make it easier for ADHD students to pay attention.
• Provide immediate and frequent consequences for both good and bad behaviour.
• Break tasks into smaller chunks.
• Use prompts, especially for rules and time intervals.
• Experiment with an artificial reward system.
• Maintain close contact with parents.