LEARNING MADE EASY
“For ADHD kids, writing is more demanding than
reading or doing math.” — WRI TE AWAY, PAGE 63
School
62 JUST FOR TEACHERS
63 LEARNING TOOLS
65 TEACHERS WE LOVE
66 M Y STORY
68 YOUR TURN
MAKE THE GRADES
Bring Out Your Child’s Inner Executive
Six ways for parents to improve executive dysfunction. BY CHRISTOPHER KAUFMAN, PH.D.
ISTOCKPHOTO /THINKSTOCK
PARENTS OF CHILDREN AND TEENS who have been diagnosed with ADHD know all about kids’ executive
function challenges at home. You ask your
nine-year-old son to clean up his room, and
an hour later, in the middle of watching his
second episode of The Big Bang Theory, he
says that he forgot you asked him to do it.
The classroom presents a much bigger
challenge to students with ADHD. To do well
in a mainstream school, kids need sustained
focus, have to understand multiple-step di-
rections, have to make frequent transitions,
and must do lots of written tasks. These are
not strengths for many ADHD kids.
Be Prepared: The Long View
The Boy Scout motto has clear relevance
for the parents of children with ADHD. Kids
with executive weakness almost always perform better in school when their parents
take an active role in their learning. Parents
should meet with teachers at the start of the
school year to introduce their child—
sharing clinical evaluation reports and written
impressions from previous teachers. They
should ask about the core curriculum, the
