When Your Child with ADHD Has Special Needs
If achievement tests indicate that your child is not progressing as expected based on her IQ test score, she is likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability. Special education can help, but so may a better mainstream classroom environment.
Make sure the teacher of your special education child with ADHD is incorporating principles into her regular instruction:
Intellectual challenges geared to the student's skill level. Lessons that are too easy are too boring to hold students' attention; lessons that are too hard cause undue frustration and cause students to give up.
Emphasis on understanding and applying concepts. Most teachers place too much emphasis on acquiring information through rote memorization, which many students perceive as useless and tend to forget soon after they are tested on it.
Involvement in setting learning objectives. Some students benefit more from the opportunity to learn a little about many subjects; some do better exploring a single subject in depth.
Opportunities to pursue individual interests. Students are more motivated when they choose the topic they want to learn about. Virtually any topic can be investigated from the standpoint of any school subject.
Self-paced learning. Some students need more time to learn the material. They just do. That is not a reflection of how intelligent they are.
Instruction that incorporates the student's preferred learning style. Lessons that engage all of the senses tend to be most effective at reaching the largest number of students.
