Five sentence summary It is not at all uncommon to present ADHD folks with choices and/or flexibility and have it overwhelm them. Demonstrate the decision making process to teach learners how to think through the different choices and their possible outcomes. Limit the number of choices given and include a "design your own" option to allow for more freedom for those who need it. Build in check in throughout the learning experience to detect problems early on, give learners opportunities for reflection, and determine if students have the appropriate resources and support to achieve their goals. Choices are often a disabled person's best friend exactly because we choose what works for us. For ADHD folks, there's less of a chance we will feel pigeonholed into something we will inevitably become bored with. Flexibility allows for creativity, innovation, personalization, and endless opportunities, but all of that freedom can overwhelm. Sometimes ADHDers need fewer choices and less flexibility. Choices and flexibility require us to identify goals, prioritize outputs, make a timeline, and identify steps needed to achieve success and these are executive functioning skills. How do we ensure choices and flexibility lead to success? By giving guidance, having a healthy balance of choices (not too many but not too few), and by scaffolding and checking in throughout the process. Guide them through the decisions Don't assume folks understand the nuanced differences between their options. Those students who are outside of their typical realm of study may be particularly lost and need more time to consider their options. Demonstrate how you would make a decision. Outline how the different options could affect their experience: this choice requires a lot of writing, the second option will mean you learn more about forests, this choice will likely require a lot of effort initially but less towards the end, etc.
For the ADHD learner that has no idea which option to work with, they may want you to give recommendations. "If you're low on energy and time right now, you may want to stick a familiar option and write a traditional paper." You could offer to meet individually with students, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and then guide them towards an option. For larger classes, you could create some sort of Google form or flowchart that guides them through a similar, reflective process.
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Five sentence summary One of the most common accommodations for folks with ADHD is sharing materials in advance. It allows us to reduce problems we experience due to focusing and trouble with executive functions. We are less likely to be thrown off if we can organize our notes and make any adjustments our brains need in advance of the talk or assignment. I know you finish your lecture materials at the last minute, but that is only an ableist excuse. Based entirely on my own experience, one of the most common accommodations for folks with ADHD is having lecture slides shared in advance. I'm willing to guess it is a common accommodation for many disabilities actually because there is so much room for accessibility when folks can modify the materials themselves to fit their own needs. Yet, this straightforward accommodation that can remove so many barriers for disabled learners is also one of the ones professors dislike and misunderstand the most. Let me be clear: Refusing to share slides and materials before class is ableist and hurts your ADHD learners. To be fair, this is a refusal that harms students without disabilities, but ADHD and other disabled learners are particularly at a disadvantage when we can't learn at our own pace and use our own strategies. Why ADHD folks need materials in advance We have problems with focusing and executive functions, like monitoring our progress, setting goals, and planning. For someone without ADHD, it's easier to ignore impulse reactions and think things through. For ADHD folks, our brains struggle and we follow those impulses, and we may lose our way, despite our best intentions. This is why it's crucial to give us the tools and time we need to organize our thoughts, notes, and space. Having the slides, questions, or other materials in advance allows us to organize on our own time. We can break things down. Whereas organizing in the moment, while a person is speaking or while we need to keep track of directions as they're being given, that's a lot harder for our minds to handle.
Five sentence summary Telling students to focus is unhelpful and potentially harmful advice. If someone with ADHD is struggling to focus, chances are that they are well aware of this and they are trying their best. Help them by determining if they need to focus right now, identifying what has previously worked in the past, and what tools and resources they might have forgotten about. Brainstorm ways to add novelty, urgency, challenge, and interest. Listen and work with the student. Telling ADHD students to focus on their school work is completely useless advice. It sounds obvious, but I recently read an article for ADHD students that advised them to focus on their school work. ADHD is defined by problems regulating attention, problems in our brains (review the science of ADHD). If we could focus on our work at will, we wouldn't have ADHD. "Try and focus" is a variation of the dreaded "Just try harder" that everyone with ADHD has heard since the beginning of time. We are trying, we do want to focus, we aren't happy our brains are like this, and we aren't purposefully trying to be difficult. Acting as though it is as simple as buckling down and focusing for ADHD learners is harmful and reiterates the idea that this is our fault and it's our own lack of willpower. Although this is rarely the case, it is this type of thinking many ADHD folks have withstood our entire lives. Combine this type of talk with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and you've got a recipe for alienating a person and lowering their self-worth. |
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