Classroom Strategies to Help ADHD Kids

• Provide a structured setting. Children with ADHD function more successfully with well defined routines.

• These children very often fall apart if their routine is suddenly changed or interrupted. Nowhere is this more apparent than when the class has a substitute teacher. In fact, we often find it necessary and helpful to define within a child's IEP what supports will go into place when there's a substitute teacher. It's helpful to assign an inhouse adult who knows the child to inform the substitute of any special needs and to assist when necessary.

• Structure shouldn't be at the expense of novelty and innovative teaching techniques. A child with ADHD craves novelty and new ways to learn. Repetition can be extremely difficult to impossible, i.e. worksheets and writing spelling words over and over.

• Give a warning shortly before a change of activity will take place. Since they can hyperfocus on an activity of interest, they can be easily frustrated when pulled away suddenly without warning. They often have difficulty transitioning from subject-to-subject.

• If you use a reward system, stickers and charts are most likely meaningless to this child. Children with ADHD seem to be born entrepreneurs. A tangible reward, something the individual child enjoys, is much more successful. One team was horrified to learn a teacher had been giving a child a candy bar twice a week as part of working with unacceptable behaviors. The mom just laughed and said "she'll do anything for chocolate, good going!" You see, the teacher's carefully chosen reward was meaningful to the child and had resulted in turning around some really negative habits over the course of that semester.

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