ADHD and Classroom participation

Neuro-Linguistic Learning Center

Helping Children, Teens and Adults Succeed in the 21st Century

ADHD and Classroom Participation

Classroom participation can be particularly troublesome for children and teens with ADHD and other visual (right-brain) learning styles for two important reasons.

First, those students with a more visual learning style are, as a group, much more interactive with their environment. They tend to process sensory information with strategies that are more appropriate to reacting to the information rather than simply storing the information for retrieval at some other time.

This [ADHD] strategy is very much connected to our natural stress response and is generally effective for activities which are by nature, interactive and require quick reflexes—skiing, snowboarding, dancing, and video games.

This strategy would be much more effective is an interactive classroom, for example, one employing a more Socratic Method where students are engaged in the teaching/learning process. However, the “sit-quietly-and-listen” teaching model simply does not lend itself to the interactive thought processes of the ADHD or right-brain learning style.

Second, children with ADHD and other visual learning styles, tend to relate to their environment visually, rather than auditorally or verbally. They live their lives through their visual perception as well as through their (visual) imagination. This imagination is made up of rapid (30-32) images per second.

Often of little interest to the AHDH child or teen is auditory or verbal instruction. The relatively slow speed at which information is delivered verbally or auditorally (remember: a picture is worth a thousand words) can be particularly frustrating to the visual thinker.

In addition, the step-by-step method typically used by teachers to explain just about everything can also be frustrating to students that are much more interested in ‘why’ things work, rather than ‘how’ they work.

The result of all this is that intelligent, active, thoughtful children are typically sentenced/confined to the typical classroom environment that is the antithesis of their natural learning style.

This sentence typically lasts 6 hours a day, 180 days a year for 12 years (longer than most prison terms). It is no wonder that by the time many children receive the appropriate help they are angry and frustrated. Many will ultimately reach the point of resignation before help arrives.