Teaching and Learning Issues Within a Cognitive Context-ADD/ADHD - Research Paper Example

Teaching and Learning Issues within a Cognitive Context-ADD/ADHD al Affiliation ADD/ADHD in growing schoolchildren Introduction Attention deficit disorder (ADD) or rather attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has emerged from the relative darkness of cognitive psychologists’ research laboratories to become the "disease du jour" of America’s schoolchildren (Alberta, 2006). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurological condition that involves problems with inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity that are actually developmentally incoherent with the age of a child. Inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity are the core symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This is not a disorder of attention, as had long been assumed but rather a function, which is considered a developmental failure of the brain circuitry monitoring inhibition as well as self-control. The loss of self-regulation prevents the normal functioning of other crucial brain functions, which help maintain attention and the ability postpone current rewards for future gain. Children with ADHD demonstrate a range of symptoms and levels of severity and often are often exhibit average intelligence as well as having various individual and personality traits (Zentall, 2005). A child with behaviors associated with ADHD has difficulties with academics and with forming relationships with his or her peers if proper instructional methodologies and interventions are not put into place. The child with ADD/ADHD typically has trouble with all aspects and situations in their lives, including schoolwork, family and social relationships (Reid & Lienemann, 2006).  Generally, individuals with ADHD exhibit combinations of the following behaviors: ▪ Fidgeting with hands or even feet or squirming in their seat (for adolescents with ADHD, they may appear restless); ▪ Difficulties in sustaining attention as well as waiting for a turn in tasks, games or even group situations; ▪ Giving answers to questions before the questions have been completed; ▪ Difficulty following instructions as well as organizing tasks; ▪ Failure to provide proper attention and avoiding careless mistakes; ▪Unnecessary loosing things for tasks or activities; ▪ Difficulty in fully listening to others without distracted or interrupting; ▪ Wide ranges in changes in the mood. ▪ Difficulty in delaying fulfillment Thesis statement Bringing up a child with ADD can remarkably be frustrating, emotionally challenging, and may be expensive. This paper discusses the concept behind ADD/SDHD as well as the problems associated with this disorder especially on growing children. The paper also discusses on the steps/level o the disorder throughout the life of the affected child. Similarly, the paper brings out the issue of ‘Focus’ as one the main innovative teaching and learning strategy that addresses the issue of concentration in children (Alberta, 2006). Stages/ grade levels 1. Developing trust for the infant In the initial months of life, an infant faces several critical developmental tasks, like learning how to calm him/herself and how to use senses to learn about the world and the people in it.  The most critical psychosocial task faced by an infant relates to the development of trust. In developing trust, the infant also learns that he/she is dependent on parents/caretakers to meet all needs like food, safety, warmth, comfort — for survival. The ability to manage sensations and to feel relaxed may pose problems for babies who are later diagnosed as having attention deficits, often described as hyper-excitable and irritable. They are always dynamic, prone to distraction, and respond quick to stimuli. Their actions may emerge to be hectic or erratic (Oxford, 1990).   2. Tolerating stage This is a separation process occurring in gradual steps, from about nine months to three and a half years. Here, a child develops the ability to hold a mental image of the parent in his mind. He begins exploring and learning about his environment and endures longer periods of separateness from significant parenting figures. As he/she does so, a strong sense of independence and confidence develops also. He starts connecting feelings and behavior, developing ideas and concepts, along with awareness that objects have functions like cups are to drink from, refrigerators hold food etc These tasks can pose significant problems for children with attention deficits. Typically, these youngsters usually have difficulties in tolerating frustrations and may be emotionally over-reactive. They have difficulty in calming themselves and tend to burst out easily, crying with lots of frustration when their needs or wants are immediately met (Alberta, 2006). 3. Pre-school child This involves Individuation, Identity, and Self-Concept. Children between three to six years of age tends to have a well-earned reputation for learning because they struggle to see their wants and needs met. However, pre-school youngsters often have great difficulty in distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Nothing is impossible at this stage (Reid & Lienemann, 2006).  The child may be confused, fearful, manipulative, or even avoidant. Attention deficit and other learning disabilities strongly contribute to the appearance of over-anxious disorders of childhood, school phobias inclusive (Alberta, 2006). Attention Deficit is usually done when the child enters school. Confused parents often disapprove them by telling them that they can remain under control if they try enough. However, concerned family members often end up criticizing both the child for being bad and their parents who are being ineffective, and this creates even more stress between the child and the parent. 4. The elementary school child (Consolidation stage) This is the consolidation stage whereby the school occupies a central role in a child’s life. Vast amounts of facts must be learned. Children require both reading and learning skills, write, as well as do arithmetic work, be a good friend to others, and be a good student. The basic tasks here include learning how to relate appropriately to adults (aside from parents) and children (who are not siblings). Here a child begins to struggle and the peers may leave them behind, both academically and socially. ADD youngsters mostly have difficulty in interpreting and processing social information and cues accurately often referred to as "social deficit disorder," that is normally tied with impulsivity, and may lead to the development of socially undesirable behaviors (Oxford, 1990).   Ironically, many children and adults with ADD are also elegantly sensitive to feedback from other individuals. A child is shunned or teased by peers, criticized by teachers for losing control, and then the child begins to develop a negative image for himself, low self-esteem, depression as well as anger when the child becomes aware of his differences from others. What parents or teachers tell the child about himself has a powerful impact on him developing self-concept. The child begins to see himself as others view him. However, sadly these negative feelings about oneself often persist through life (Zentall, 2005). ADD causes multiple problems especially in growing children. The child has trouble in life such as learning, self-esteem, behavior, peer relationships, mood, family relationships and other behaviors. Medication is one factor that helps to relieve the aforementioned symptoms. The treatments may include the use of psycho-stimulant medications as well as the use of a titrated mixture of antidepressant medication. Therapy and counseling by a professional person also helps the child and the family to deal with ADD and related problems. Therapy may include compliance training by parents, social skills training, training on anger management cognitive therapy, which helps improve self-esteem and mood, as well as therapy with siblings and parents. Children with ADHD make a big portion of those who receive intervention in schools. This kind of disorder has significant effects on a person’s academic success because of difficulties with selective attention, impulsivity, sustained attention as well as high levels of activity. One big characteristic is reduced ability to listening and following instructions. Learning strategies are in most cases used as intervention for students and children with ADHB to help them improve their listening effectiveness (Alberta, 2006). Innovative teaching and learning strategy to address the issue Learning strategies are defined as actions, which are taken by the children so as to make learning faster, easier, effective, self-directed as well as transferrable to new situations. These strategies are designed to assist students and children to succeed in various academic areas since they employ the use of the first-letter mnemonic, which is often used to cue children and students to help them follow the steps of strategy. FOCUS is one of the main mnemonic that has been developed as a teaching and learning strategy to address the afore-discussed issue (Reid & Lienemann, 2006).  FOCUS For a child to develop attention skills, they should always focus on the speaker, in this case being the teacher. Focus on speaker Eyes and mind on the speaker. Resist talking to your neighbors. Keep your hands and feet quiet. Open your mind Clear your mind from any distracting thoughts i.e. Ignore distractions. Be ready to learn and remember. Set your mind (focus) on the subject. Keep your brain open. Think about what is being said. Connect Try to relate what you have heard with what you already know and also relate this to the lesson that you are learning. In your mind, create a new picture of the new information. Listen to what other students comment and relate to yours. Use your eyes Be attentive to the book, worksheets, chalkboard, overheads, or any other visual materials. Select Select the crucial parts so as to know what to remember. Say these important parts to yourself in your own words. Ask yourself questions to make sure that you understand. Teaching focus  Most experts have agreed that the strategy to teach FOCUS should be described to the student.  This should include information about each step of the strategy and the benefits of using the strategy.  FOCUS should be practiced until the student can recite it easily from his/her memory. The teacher should teach the student about how to apply this strategy on a variety of settings. Finally, both the student and teacher should also evaluate and monitor the strategy use (Oxford, 1990).   The teacher might begin by teaching a short lesson on a topic related to the curriculum in order to collect the baseline about the students listening skills. During such a lesson, a fellow teacher or teacher’s helper might make an observation to the students and note their listening behaviors using the FOCUS observation cue described above. After the lesson, the teacher should check understanding by asking the students questions that are related to the lesson.  Any of the students who exhibit difficulty with the listening behaviors or in answering questions may extensively benefit from the FOCUS instructions (Alberta, 2006). After this baseline data has been collected, teachers should then introduce the strategy to the students, teaching about the significance of the strategy and what each step of FOCUS implies.    The FOCUS Cue Card can be used as an illustration cue at the beginning of verbal practice and then discarded as students improve in their ability to remember the steps.  Once students are about 80% accurate in reciting the FOCUS steps, without the cue card, the teacher then begins to teach the students on the ways of applying the strategy steps in listening activities (Zentall, 2005). Activities to Teach Use of FOCUS Steps Teachers use the following activities when teaching the steps to the FOCUS strategy.  Recall that each step should be described, modeled, practiced, and then evaluated.  F: Focus on the Speaker Here, it is important to express the reciprocity in communication.  Students are taught to be good listeners and not actually just look at the speaker.  However, listening does not communicate to the speaker that the student is interested.  This simple listening may have a spectacular effect on the quality of interaction.  Anyone who has tried talking to a person not interested can confirm this.  Therefore, it is important for the student to demonstrate behaviors which are consistent with good listening behaviors too. To achieve this, the teacher should discuss with the students the meaning if focus and also outline to them the behaviors exhibited by an individual when he/she is focused (Zentall, 2005). O: Open Your Mind Multi-tasking is a skill that has grown in importance and popularity.  Multi-tasking requires individuals to think about several topics at once.  Unluckily, this positive skill can negatively affect the ability of a student to listen effectively.  Therefore, it is especially important to remind students that they must clear their minds As well as paying attention to what the speaker says in order to gain information (learn) from listening. This can be achieved through discussing various things that can bring about distraction that interferes with active listening. Stress to the student that they should always open their mind to the current topic (Alberta, 2006). C: Connect Making a connection of the student’s prior knowledge, including interests and experiences, is a basic part of scaffolding as well as the process of learning.  This part helps the student to identify what he or she already knows about the topic, compare it to what the speaker teaches, and then make some modifications on his or her concept of the topic to match.  Making connections provides the student with say “hooks” on which to hang the new information gained, making it meaningful to the student and this motivates the student.  Recognition the importance of making connections and being able to do so are key steps in learning to use FOCUS (Reid & Lienemann, 2006).  U: Use Your Eyes Students may not recognize that using eyes as a valuable skill that can improve their ability to listen.  It is necessary that their attention is diverted to the importance of looking at the visual aids that are available.  Visual aids can be a variety of items like a page in the book, writing on the board, a poster, a worksheet, etc.  Teaching students to be familiar with and use visual aids is a crucial step of FOCUS. This is achieved by showing the students the importance of using visual aids that are available (Oxford, 1990).   S: Select Selecting means that the student is doing away with irrelevant information and then focusing on what is important in the message. Students with ADHD have distinguished deficits in selective attention, which negatively affects their ability to listen to as well as following directions.  Instead of trying to recall each bit of word spoken by the speaker, the listener must also learn how to identify and remember the crucial parts of the message.  Trying to remember information that is not important can interfere with how the student can remember the overall message. Once the student has selected the important parts of the message, he/she should the focus on them (Reid & Lienemann, 2006).  Strategy Evaluation As stated earlier, students’ behaviors that express listening and their responses to listening understanding questions should first be evaluated before FOCUS is introduced.  Having this baseline data will assist the teacher to show that students have gained experience, improving in listening skills after learning to apply the FOCUS strategy.  Evaluation can be completed through two methods.  First, the students are observed and rated on behaviors related to the FOCUS strategy.  During the lesson, each student is evaluated for: (a) Eye contact with the speaker (b) Demonstration of listening by not talking to others (c) Using the correct sitting posture (d) Listening to other students’ comments (e) Using relevant comments or even questions (f) Ability to follow directives such as looking at the board, taking out pencil, or turning to your neighbors.  These behaviors can be easily rated during the lesson by just observation. Secondly, comprehension questions related to the lesson are developed for assessment afterwards.  These can be given orally or in written form depending on the skills of the students.  Keep a track of each student’s score on the comprehension questions. The above two methods of evaluation should be deployed for each mini lesson in pre-test, controlled practice, advanced practice, post-test, and maintenance to obtain data.  The students should be able to achieve 80% accuracy or above on the comprehension questions following the mini lessons and on the FOCUS behavior evaluation to demonstrate mastery at each level (Reid & Lienemann, 2006).  Conclusion ADHD victims especially students face numerous challenges, with listening effectively being one of them.  Listening is actually used in every class as well as in every situation throughout each day of the school.  Students can apply the steps of the FOCUS strategy discussed above as they sit in class, go through the lunchtime, complete group work, and interact with peers on the playground.  Teaching students FOCUS and providing them with a range of opportunities in which to practice effective use of this strategy can give them a tool to improve their functioning across the curriculum (Oxford, 1990).   References Alberta Education. (2006). Focusing on Success: Teaching Students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, grades 1-12. Retrieved May 3, 2010 from http://education.alberta.ca/admin/special/resources/adhd.aspx Oxford, R.  (1990).  Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Pressley, M. & Woloshyn, V. (1995). Cognitive strategy instruction that really improves children’s academic performance (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books. Reid, R., & Lienemann, T.O. (2006). Strategy instruction for students with learning disabilities: What works for special needs learners? New York, NY: Gilford Publications. Zentall, S. (2005). Theory- and evidence-based strategies for children with attentional problems. Psychology in the Schools, 42, 821-836. doi: 10.1002/pits.20114 Read More