Tips for helping students with ADHD
Tips for helping students with ADHD
By Ella Holton-McCoy, MA
Attention:
Give brain breaks
TEACH MONOTASKING (vs. multitasking)
Remove all distractions from the environment
Try setting a timer for focused work time and then a timer for a break
Forest Timer
Pomodoro
Phone Timer
Cube timer
Visual Timer
Mindfulness! Try the Calm App or Insight Timer
Teach about the Attentional Octopus
Impulsivity:
Repeat, repeat, repeat
Teach them to take 5 seconds before doing anything that pops into their mind
Teach them to take a breath before doing the thing that pops into their mind
A lot of impulsivity stems from anxiety, so focus on some calm strategies
Procrastination:
Uncover the why- why are you procrastinating?
Make sure they truly understand the assignment
Make a to-do list so everything is on the table
Map out how much time something is going to take
Help them find a starting point- sometimes just getting started is the hardest part
Organization
Use a calendaring system: paper planner, whiteboard, digital calendar (Google Calendar)
Utilize the opposite of out of sight, out of mind: IN sight, IN mind.
Do you have systems that the student had a hand in creating?
