Could Attention Deficit Disorder Be Considered a Disability in a Learning Environment?

Could Attention Deficit Disorder be Considered a Disability in a Learning Environment?

Abstract

Attention Deficit Disorder is one of the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorders amongst school age children. The foremost characteristic of this chronic disorder is the inability to pay attention, and the ability to become easily distracted by irrelevant sights and sounds. This study demonstrates that based on symptoms caused directly by an Attention Deficit Disorder, in accordance with definitions and legal standings from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Department of Education, and the Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence, Attention Deficit Disorder does certainly meet the criteria of a disability.

When it comes to learning, how many children out there have been told at one time or another that they were lazy, unmotivated, or just not working up to their potential? Are these accusations accurate, or are they excuses for a more serious underlying issue such as a learning disability? Granted, a child would not be a child if they were not occasionally distracted, sometimes restless, or act without thinking. However, when symptoms like distractibility and poor concentration caused by an Attention Deficit Disorder create learning limitations in a classroom, it needs to be taken into consideration that the Attention Deficit Disorder may be creating a disability for the child.

As demonstrated in Figure 1, according to the Mayo Clinic, Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD, is a neurobiological disorder that affects 3 to 7% of school-age children (Mayo Clinic, 2002).

While the dominant characteristic of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention, individuals diagnosed specifically with ADD are rarely impulsive or hyperactive, but do have considerable problems paying attention and becoming easily distracted by immaterial sights and sounds. Table 1 demonstrates additional characteristics that may accompany ADD.

Does this mean that individuals who demonstrate some of the characteristics in Table 1 have ADD? No. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition:

If a person has been diagnosed by qualified medical personal as having at least six or more of the symptoms in Table 1 for at least six months to the point where these symptoms are disruptive and inappropriate for developmental levels, that person may be considered to have Attention Deficit Disorder (APA, 2000).

This also does not imply in anyway that every child who is overly inattentive or impulsive has ADD. A child just would not be a child if they did not impulsively shout things out, or jump from one task to another.

Children with ADD can pay attention. Their problems have to do with what they are paying attention to. Children as well as adults with undiagnosed or untreated ADD generally have difficulty staying focused for long periods on any one subject. This loss of focus is generally caused by the ability to become easily distracted by irrelevant sights and sounds. In a classroom, these distractions can be something as simple as a student asking the teacher a question during quiet time, the noise made from children playing outside the classroom on the playground, or even the smell of food from the cafeteria. Regardless of what the distraction is, when these distractions occur, research has demonstrated that a child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD will tend to turn their attention to follow these distractions instead of paying attention to the classroom teacher. When this occurs, the child tends to stop paying attention to the classroom teacher in order to tune in to the distraction. If enough of these distractions occur, the child may miss much of the information being taught in the classroom by the teacher, and even have a new distraction as a result; trying to catch up with the rest of the class.

To compound matters, as the teacher moves on to new material, if the child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD has not learned the material that was previously taught, the child can fall even further behind the rest of the class.

As an example, imagine teaching a class that contains a child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD the names and locations of all the states in the United States. If the child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD is continuously distracted over the course of this lesson the child may miss what some of the states are named and where they are located. When the teacher moves on to the next lesson, which may be to discuss the capitol of each state, the child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD may fall behind the rest of the class because he has not learned all the material from the previous lesson. Because each grade level is built on material learned from the previous grade, falling behind in a topic such as Algebra could be a recipe for academic disaster for a child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD.

Academic issues related to an Attention Deficit Disorder can beyond learning classroom material. Research has also demonstrated that exam taking can create a dilemma for a student with undiagnosed or untreated ADD. Our educational system has traditionally used exams to determine whether a student is learning the material presented in class, and this form of evaluation may not accurately demonstrate the level of knowledge a child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD may be at. Research has shown that distractions during test taking, can adversely affect the score a child may get on their exam. If another student in the class asks a question, or gets up to turn in their paper, these simple distractions may cause a child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD to lose there place in the exam, and have to start their train of thought over again. This can be disastrous if there is a time limit on the test, as the child may run out of time, and not complete the exam.

Studies have demonstrated that while all children can learn, not all children learn at the same rate nor to the same extent (Weaver, 2006), and our educational system recognizes this. If at any time, a child is not making sufficient progress learning the material taught in class, extra assistance is offered in the form of additional homework, tutoring, extra class time, or independent study. For most children, this is enough to get them through the material; however further research demonstrates that for a child with undiagnosed or untreated ADD, if there are distractions during this additional study time, such as in a noisy library or classroom,