Special Learning Considerations for Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) face difficulty in classroom situations due to their lessened ability to learn by conventional methods. Children with ADHD excel in some tasks, but perform poorly in others because of differences in the ways that their brains acquire and retain information. Slower learning pace, memory issues, decreased motor skills, and lack of sustained focus contribute to lower academic functioning within the ADHD population. Ability is not decreased, however, and considerations can be made to ensure that the quality of education for children with ADHD is as high as for typical developmental (td) children. Children with ADHD face many challenges because they do not learn in the same way that typical development (td) children do. Problems with inattention, lack of inhibition, and increased motor function cause difficulty within the classroom setting and may disrupt learning for not only the child with ADHD, but his or her classmates as well. Children with ADHD have different brain wiring, so they process and store information differently than td children. They lose their focus more easily and stay off-task longer than most other children in the classroom. Slower language comprehension causes delays in communication, but does not affect understanding of the information provided. They may have excellent verbal communication, but have serious deficits in nonverbal communication. They also have difficulty reading social cues because dividing attention in a highly stimulated environment, in addition to working memory deficits, depletes recognition of these cues. Because of these obstacles to learning, special consideration for alternate learning methods and increased time for tasks should be given to children with ADHD, in order to enable them to reach their full potential in academics. Children with ADHD may have high IQs and score in the upper percentile for verbal communication skills, yet they may not have the ability to express the language of nonverbal communication (Melillo, 2010). There may be a significant point difference between the two, with genius scores and sizeable deficits found within the same individual. This point difference causes a type of disconnect that considerably affects the way the individual functions. While brain function might excel in some areas, the deficits in other areas create a distorted picture, which exhibits as poor functioning. Children with ADHD who function poorly both in and out of the classroom are aware of their difficulties, but still lack the ability to change (Klimkeit et al., 2006). This awareness can translate into psychological and emotional problems, which further affect a child's functioning within a school environment. "Fitting in" with other children at school fulfils a basic social need (Cherry, n.d., para. 1). Lack of such belonging may lead to frustration and to deviant behaviours (Brook, Brook, Zhang, & Koppel, 2010). Providing alternate ways of evaluating learned material, such as use of oral tests, could enable children with ADHD to articulate ideas that would otherwise be lost. This strategy would normalize the education and allow them to contribute to class development as well as to maintain their self-esteem due to their academic success. Staying focused on the task at hand is a known difficulty for children with ADHD (I. McIntyre, psychiatrist, personal communication, May 24, 2012). What has been less well known is the very rapid repeated oscillation from attention to inattention (Rapport, Kofler, Alderson, Timko, & DuPaul, 2009). Differences between children with ADHD and td children include a faster loss of focus for children with ADHD, plus a longer time of unfocused behaviour. After the time of unfocused behaviour, focus does return to the required task. However, focus is again lost after a shorter period of time in comparison to td children (Rapport et al., 2009). Focus becomes even