Classroom accommodations that help students with ADHD

Most accommodations for ADHD are not special equipment. They are ordinary teaching decisions made slightly differently, and the majority of them help the rest of the class too, which is the practical argument for making them the default rather than the exception.

Reduce the cost of starting

Getting started is often harder than continuing. A worksheet with the first item already begun, or an instruction broken into a numbered list, removes the step where attention is most likely to be lost. "Do question one now, then look up" beats "work through the page".

Shorten the distance to feedback

• Check work after two questions, not twenty. An error caught early is corrected; an error caught at the end is re-learned.
• Use a visible timer for short bursts. An endpoint that can be seen is easier to work toward than one that is merely stated.
• Give one instruction at a time, and ask for it back before moving on.

Seating and movement

Seat the student near the teacher and away from the highest-traffic route, but not in a way that broadcasts it. Build in legitimate movement, such as collecting books or handing out sheets, so that the need to move has an outlet that is not disruptive.

Assessment adjustments

Extra time helps only if the difficulty is processing speed. Where the difficulty is sustaining attention, a test split into two shorter sittings does more than a longer single one. Reading the instructions aloud costs nothing and removes a failure mode that has nothing to do with the subject.

The thing to avoid

Do not make the accommodation conspicuous. A support that costs a child standing among peers will be refused, and a refused support is worth nothing.

Sources

• CDC — ADHD
• American Academy of Pediatrics — HealthyChildren.org