Acedemic Areas most Affected

[Janice Adamson]

While students with ADD may have impaired functioning on any school task, some activities tap more directly into the specific deficits central to ADD.

Written language usually is problematic. To begin with, the majority of students with ADD have poor fine motor skills. Thus the motoric activity of holding a pencil and making it do what it's supposed to do can be a struggle. Motor planning is required in order to correctly form letters and connect them with one another, but such planning does not come easily for impulsive students.

Divided attention, that is moving back and forth between two or more tasks or ideas is particularly difficult.

If the motor and other mechanical aspects of writing occupy full student attention, the message of the written communication will be lost; or at least the flow of the writing will be lacking. Students with ADD describe major difficulties with taking notes in lecture classes. "I can listen or I can write. I can't do both. When I write, I lose the instructor until I'm done." Obviously, much of the message is lost when that happens. Reviewing notes taken by students with ADD reveals large gaps in the information which makes its way onto paper, validating this problem.

Actively thinking about forming letters and spelling words is required for many students with ADD.

Confronted with a sentence to write, the student must think what she wants to say; then the words must be selected; then the spelling of the individual words must be considered; then how the letters themselves are formed may occupy conscious thought. ("Let's see. To make an "I" in cursive, I have to start at the line and make a loop and then back down like this...") By the time a few words have been written, the intent of the sentence may have been lost; so the student must return to "go" and start again.

Rote memorization is excessively difficult for students with ADD.

Nothing requires greater sustained concentration than memorizing. Yet learning math facts involves huge components of rote memorization. How do we learn that 9 x7= 63? We just go over and over the number combination until an automated connection is formed in our brains. There is not much context tothat piece of information; and higher level cognitive processes are not much help. The information has to be memorized. Students with ADD are impaired to their ability to make these types of connections through rote memorization, partly because of their difficulty focusing forced, intense concentration for any subject, and partly because of their difficulty forcing confused, intense concentration for any subject, and partly because the information is not inherently interesting nor attractive. Math facts, by their nature are dull and colourless. Thus the learner must bring more of themselves to the task; and the students with ADD are unable to "turn on" attentional processes on demand. Higher level math is much more conceptual and logical, and thus is more interesting. However, in order to get the right answer, students usually have to utilize math facts memorized in elementary school. A common pattern among students with ADD is a markedly better grasp of math concepts than the ability to form computations.

Add impairs functioning on many sequentially ordered activities.

Think of acedemic tasks in which the order in which the information is presented, or the order in which the problem is solved, is critical. These will be difficult for the ADD students. Working multiple digit multiplication or long division problems requires that a set of steps to be followed in the right order. If any step is followed out of order (e.g., you don't bring down the next number from the dividend before the divisor is entered again), your answer will be wrong. Of course, such problems require sustained attention to small details within the problem, sometimes for a minute or more. If attention wanders, careless mistakes will also occur.

Other sequentially ordered tasks include spelling. Knowing the letters to be used in a word does little good if the order is wrong. Spelling requires memorization, too, at least for the many irregular words or "exceptions" in the English language; and thus rote memorization and sequencing problems combine to impair spelling.

While written language (including spelling) and math are the most prominent problem areas of students with ADD, all types of acedemic functioning can be comprised by the disorder.

Distractibility, disorganization, and lack of intensity of focus, along with writing and/or math difficulties noted above, will greatly limit productivity. Thus the amount of work completed within a given time frame will be markedly less than that produced by peers. Inability to remember multiple step directions often results in students with ADD being confused about assignments and wasting much time getting started, only to find later that the wrong problems were done or the incorrect work sheet was used. Forgetting items necessary for tasks (e.i.,failing to bring home books needed for homework or projects) obviously interferes with getting assignments done.

Report Cards for student with ADD give a glimpse into the nature of the disorder.

Typically, grades will vacillate from year to year, or even within marking periods of the same year. Part of the vulnerability is due to the "fit" between the educational environment and the student's needs. For examplle if a teacher writes assignments on the board and makes sure that all students have the materials needed to complete the assignments before they leave for home, the student with ADD may do fine. If writing is a big part of the cirriculum one year, and the only way to do well in history or in science is to write regularly, grades likely will plummet.

Often the best clues about how much the disorder is impairing school functioning is to look at the comments teachers incluse with the grades. The most common notes are "does not complete assignments", "inconsistent test scores", and "missing homework." These notes indicate difficulties for the teacher in evaluating the student's work. However, they may or may not indicate how much or how well the student is learning the material.

[Frances Bredenkamp]

What an insightful piece of information. Thank you for the time spent on this summary.

[Janice Adamson]

You're most welcome. I have four children and myself affected with this disorder, all in varying degrees.

I read this post and it seems to mirror my life and theirs. I've changed my handwriting three different times, hyper-focus, lose focus and organization is a challenge. Actually everyday is a challenge...

Although I understand the ins and outs of the disorder first-hand, it is my hope to educate those who wish to know more about the disorder. It is more widespread than first thought, and more research has been done in this area, thus making more information readily available, and has provided more insight into AD/HD.

Glad you enjoyed the post!