How Do I Help Children With ADHD?

Many people are not aware that in addition to difficulty sustaining attention, impulsivity, and having an excess amount of energy, children with ADHD also tend to have difficulty with perception of time, forgetting what they need to do or what materials they need, and accepting delayed gratification.  Additional details as well as effective interventions are discussed below. 

Time Management

Due to neurocognitive impairments, children with ADHD have a tendency to overestimate time intervals and therefore think that they have more time than they actually do.

• Intervention #1:  Help the child to learn how to track and estimate how long it takes to complete various tasks using something such as this Time Management Form.   

  • • • This form requires the child to break large tasks into smaller steps, keep track of the materials that are needed to accomplish each task, estimate how long it will take to complete the task, identify a day/time that they will engage in the task, and finally, note how long it actually took to complete the task.  The child can then use the knowledge of how long it actually took to gauge how long similar assignments may take to complete and plan accordingly in the future.  This form will also help the child to identify how "far off" his/her estimation of how long it would take to complete the task was from how long it actually took.  

• Intervention #2:  Utilize a timer that beeps at specific intervals, after which the child can take a break for a specific period of time, return, and reset the timer.  This can help the child to begin to learn what specific time periods "feel like" so that they can better estimate when something is taking longer than it should.  

Forgetfulness

Children with ADHD often don't pay attention to details, which leads to them misunderstanding instructions.  Additionally, children with ADHD often believe that they will remember what needs to be done but quickly forget.

• Intervention #1: Utilize a reminder binder or an online calendar such as Google Calendar to organize their due dates and test dates.  An added benefit of Google Calendar is that they can share their calendar with parents or teachers, who can then monitor at a distance whether the child has input the dates correctly.  

• Intervention #2: Teach the child to utilize a checklist in order to remember what materials they need to bring, what they need to do, etc.

Delayed Gratification

Children with ADHD often have difficulty with delayed gratification and place more weight on immediate rewards than on longer-term incentives (Nigg & Casey, 2005; Sonuga-Barke, 2003).  

• Intervention #1: Consider using a positive reinforcement system in which reinforcers for pre-defined positive behaviors are provided in short time intervals.  As the student increases their self-regulation skills, gradually increase the amount of time between reinforcers until the reinforcers are faded completely.  Be sure not to provide reinforcers early or if they are not earned by exhibiting the pre-defined positive behaviors.  

• Intervention #2: Create checklists of specific behaviors that the child is expected to demonstrate within the classroom (raising hand, not interrupting, waiting their turn, etc.).  Review the checklists at the end of the day and provide praise, reinforcement, and feedback to the student regarding their progress.  

• Intervention #3: Home-school communication can be helpful at the younger ages.  Teachers and parents may wish to utilize a Daily Report Card noting how the student did that day and what the student earned at school.  The parents will then note what rewards or consequences that the child had at home and return it to the teacher the following day.  This ensures that the child understands that the teacher and the parents are communicating and provides a delayed reinforcer at the end of the day at home for appropriate behavior at school.  This process can be faded as the student has longer spans of days in which no issues occur.

Off-Task Behavior

A core component of ADHD is difficulty maintaining focus.  

• Intervention #1: Increase the child's self-awareness of when they are becoming off-task by having them keep a log of when they find themselves "drifting." 

• Intervention #2: Teach the child how to actively engage with information being presented, such as taking notes, highlighting important aspects of text, or summarizing what has been said.  

Avoid Over-Supporting

Like those with executive functioning deficits (which most children with ADHD have), adults must be careful not to over-support students with ADHD by providing constant prompting, giving ongoing reminders, and organizing things for them.  Children with ADHD must be taught self-regulation and self-organization skills scaffolded with these supports but the supports must then be faded so that the student can habitualize them internally.   If the child fails an assignment or doesn't study for a test then the child can learn from the natural consequences that occur, the adult can provide them with feedback and support, and then fade the support again in order to promote generalization.  

Adults must remember that they will not always be around to organize their children...eventually the child will need to learn independently in a college, university, or vocational school or maintain a job independently by arriving on time, planning their day, and meeting deadlines.  Therefore, adults can best support children with ADHD by stepping back and allowing them to generalize the skills they have learned to everyday life.