Because LD and ADHD Do Not Go Away at Three O'Clock
A Guide for Students, Parents, and Teachers
By Fern Goldstein, MS, Teacher of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of G. Whiz Educational Resources, and Author of Looking Glass Spelling and G. Whiz I Finished My Homework!
Education for young people does not occur only in school, so the results of any intervention will be limited unless there is carryover and cooperation between home and school, because LD and ADHD do not go away at three o'clock . When parent and teacher efforts and responsibilities coincide, much can be accomplished, and the skills taught in school can and should extend to the home. Students need consistent adult supervision until they can internalize the skills being taught. They must also have a clear understanding of expectations for meeting educational and behavioral requirements. Here are some ideas that will help you foster school-home cooperation for students with LD and make everyone's lives a lot easier.
People with LD are no less talented and unique than individuals without LD; however, there are certain weaknesses that are generally more prevalent in the learning disabled population and in people with ADHD. In order to affect positive growth for children with LD and ADHD, we need to examine these areas of weakness and how to remediate them at school and at home. Difficulties with the greatest impact on academic and professional success include: poor organizational skills, poor time management, impaired processing of language, poor impulse control, and poor memory.
Difficulty with organizational skills manifests itself throughout the school day and at home. Students are frequently unprepared for class with either no homework or homework that is incomplete. Notices, permission slips, and class notes are misplaced or languish at the bottom of a book bag. Lunch money is lost, or lunch is forgotten. At home, this disability affects the children's ability to keep their rooms clean, maintain teacher-parent communication, and initiate and complete chores. Parents and teachers become frustrated and students are embarrassed and sometimes angry or withdrawn because of their inability to find important papers or materials essential to negotiating their day.
Teachers have developed a variety of tools to help students develop organizational skills, including charts, check-off lists, folders, special notebooks, and assignment planners. By designating a place for each item and a method for accountability for task completion and materials, teachers provide external organizational structure for students who lack the internal one to do it for themselves. These tools are only as useful, however, as the follow-up and support they receive from home.
To ensure that students understand and use the tools supplied in school, teachers and parents need to verify that backpacks and binders are organized in the specific, stipulated fashion. Teachers must check that papers are put away in the correct folder in class and notices are in a folder in the backpack for delivery home. By the same token, parents need to check those folders nightly to ensure that notices are received and acted upon in a timely fashion. Writing assignments in a planner at school will not help if the student does not consult the planner before beginning homework at home. Parents can help by reviewing the planner and helping the student devise a nightly schedule. (Programs such as G. Whiz…I Finished My Homework! by this author address this issue) Doing homework is truly successful only if that homework gets back to school, so parents need to do a backpack check each evening after homework is complete to see that the work is ready for the next morning. The key is consistent expectations.
An equally important piece of the organizational puzzle is effective time management, because children with certain types of ADHD and LD exhibit an inability to comprehend time concepts. Typically, the child has no idea how much time has been spent on an activity, how much time to plan for an activity, or how much time is left for an activity. Without an internal clock, time and tasks appear endless and therefore daunting.
The abstract idea of time needs to be anchored to the students' reality. Limits and concrete reminders need to be provided to help students develop a sense of time. There are several good techniques for imbuing time with reality. Linking a favorite activity that lasts for a set time, such as a cartoon show that lasts half an hour, to another activity that should last for the same amount of time helps students comprehend that unit of time. Another technique that is successful in helping students manage and understand time is using a digital timer and a task schedule to structure homework time or chores. Parents and teachers can help students develop a better sense of time by guiding their estimates of how much time should be spent on a task. Students should then work to that time limit, rather than to a finished product. When the students correlate the time spent to the amount of work achieved, they can better regulate their effort and time-on-task within a set time limit. While parents should help students be realistic about planning time, students who determine their own schedules will be more invested in following them.
Memory problems have obvious implications in school and at home when children try to remember chores, homework assignments, directions, phone numbers or messages, etc. Imagine the frustration for the children and the people with whom they are trying to communicate when children cannot recall what they did or what was said to them just a few minutes before.
After a long day at school, students may find it particularly difficult to remember what happened at school or what they are supposed to do when they get home. Parents can reduce stress and improve recall by providing visual or verbal cues to trigger memory and by modifying their communication style. Saying or asking one thing at a time does not require the difficult task of holding an idea in memory while acting on a second idea. Repetition of information helps the child remember and sequence input. It is important to realize that, “I forgot,” may be a very legitimate response. Parents can make lists and schedules to be followed at home, similar to the ones teachers have in their classrooms.
There are three principles that should guide our interactions with children with LD or ADHD: structure, consistency, multi-modality. Any effective methodology or strategy for helping children cope with LD or ADHD must comprise these principles as well.
Structure needs to be imposed on every task. First, the adults can break each task down into small progressive steps to help the disorganized child sequence and can provide a sense of accomplishment as each step is completed. Parents can help their children develop direction-following skills, improve memory, organization, and time management. As students use teacher- or parent-provided task analysis, they can be encouraged to do this for themselves.
Consistency in application of structure and expectations helps students with learning disabilities develop a feeling of security. Time becomes less chaotic and the day more predictable, so students can apply skills and strategies and negotiate the day with less anxiety. It is essential that what the teacher expects, the parents expect as well, creating a school-to-home continuum of consistent expectations . While we need to understand that a learning disability can be the cause of inappropriate behavior or a failure to perform, we do our children a disservice if we allow their disabilities to become an excuse or a crutch. One very wise young adult with LD once said to me, “If I do not reach beyond my disability, I will always be defined by my disability.”
Multi-sensory learning and communicating increase the possibilities for comprehension, integration, and retention. When giving instructions or assignments, say it and write it. Draw it if necessary. Have the student use auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, and visual pathways as they trace, draw, read, say, and do activities to learn and retain material. Provide check-off boxes, use color-coding, play music, or come up with a chant, mnemonic, or rhyme to cue and reinforce learning. At home, have a list of chores (visual); leave a message on the answering machine (auditory), use a timer that dings (auditory time management). All children learn better by doing, but students with LD need it even more. Engage in activities at home such as cooking by performing the steps as you talk it through and read the recipe. The weaker sensory pathways will become strengthened by repeated use and association with the stronger ones.
The nature of the relationship between children and the adults in their lives is of paramount importance. Students with LD can optimize their learning experiences if they, the adults who teach them, and the parents who love them comprehend their difficulties and understand what the children need to achieve their goals. Our goal is to help children become functioning, independent adults in whatever future they have dreamed for themselves. They deserve our honesty, our understanding, our respect, and our effort. Given the right tools, the children must then take the responsibility to use those tools on their own as they grow older. If the adults in their lives provide a nurturing environment with cooperation between home and school that is structured and consistent, then the children will be better able to learn and thrive.
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