Add and Adhd

There is a growing awareness in the education community that attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) can result in significant learning problems for children with those conditions. While estimates of the prevalence of ADD vary widely, it’s believed that three to five percent of school-aged children say have significant educational problems related to this disorder.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), also called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), is a developmental disability estimated to affect between three to five percent of all children under the age of nineteen (Barkley, 1990). Students with this disorder are often inattentive, impulsive, and in some cases hyperactive. Some signs of inattentive behavior include daydreaming in class. Often the students in a classroom that were diagnosed with ADHD were seen staring out the window, or somewhere into the space of the classroom, rather than focusing on the seatwork in front of them. They were easily distracted by things going on all around them. The students with ADHD also had a short and limited attention span. The impulsive behavior in these students included rushing to finish assignments whether they were completed correctly or not, speaking or acting without thinking first, losing temporary control of emotions, and constantly shifting gears, moving from one thing to the next. The hyperactive behavior in these students included constant moving around, fidgeting, moving in and out of their seats, and constantly playing with objects from their own or a neighbor’s desk. These students seemed to find pleasure or comfort in tapping their fingers on the desk or humming sounds or tunes during the day. These behaviors were often disruptive to others, thus leading to interventions by the teacher.