Recognizing Child ADHD In The Classroom

We all know that children with ADHD tend to underachieve in the classroom but recognizing who they are and what help they need may not be as easy as it would seem at first glance. They may mask their challenges under the veil of capability, or having great potential, and indeed this may be the case. But unless a way is found translate their potential into results they will join the eight out of every ten ADHD students who underachieve academically. In this article we will take a slightly different path by learning to recognized the challenged ADHD student by how well they embrace and use their written and spoken language in the classroom.



The ADHD student and language skills



The primary symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactive behavior. They may also experience a great many challenges when it comes to understanding, comprehending, and implementing language. Let's take a moment to quickly look into four different areas especially troublesome for the ADHD child.



*Lack of flexibility: Students with ADHD may not be able to comprehend and/or implement flowery language, ambiguous language, words with multiple meanings, and word grouping written from a light hearted point of view. Additionally, learning pronunciation skills by dividing words into syllables and sounds may prove difficult.



*Inability to use language skills to interact positively in the classroom: Engaging in a productive conversation is a trait that does not come naturally to most ADHD children. This applies to the classroom where an ADHD child may desperately want to ask a question but may not be able to summon the right words to actually do it effectively. Furthermore if they try but fail, it may be a while before they are able to muster up the courage for a second attempt.



*Comprehensive may not come naturally: Three out of every four ADHD children struggle with remembering the spoken word. They will tend to get assignments mixed or forget an important part. Reading comprehensive may also prove to be a real problem, especially if they don't find the subject matter all that interesting.



*Grammar and language structure may be the weakest area of all: It is very common for children with ADHD to struggle with understanding the structural component of a sentence. This is generally attributed to a biological imbalance in the brain that makes the ADHD child very creative but typically unable to embrace any type of structural parameters. This will translate into how they look at sentences, paragraphs, and short stories.



*Additional language challenges: An ADHD student may tend to repeat the same words more often than normal. They may struggle to come up with the right word at the right time. This weakness might be exposed when taking a fill in the blank type test. They may also struggle on essay type test answers that require them to work in a narrow channel of ideas.



In summary, recognizing and finding help for the ADHD student early is a very important part of allowing them to achieve their potential in the future. After all language skills are the building blocks necessary to achieve most social and professional goals.



The most common form of treatment currently are prescription stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall and Vyvanse. While effective, all stimulant medications come with a number of serious label warnings. The risk of side effects, or perhaps lack of success with stimulants, has prompted many parent of ADHD students to investigate other options. A couple examples of this are behavior modification therapy and/or natural remedies. Natural remedies for ADHD are a side effect free way to address such problematic symptoms as inattention, distractibility, impulsivity, erratic behavior and hyperactivity and can be used both as a standalone treatment or as a compliment to other nonprescription alternatives.