Truth: Lots of kids with ADHD do well in school, especially in younger grades where there is less homework to complete.
Many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) struggle with school. Recently, children have faced a variety of changes in the way that they attend school. Some might be attending virtual classes; others might attend school in-person with many new rules.
ADHD can affect a student's ability to focus, pay attention, listen, or put effort into schoolwork. ADHD also can make a student fidgety, restless, talk too much, or disrupt the class. Kids with ADHD might also have learning disabilities that cause them to have problems in school.
The best schools for kids with ADHD are ones that encourage and maintain an open dialogue between parents, teachers, and administrators, so everyone is on the same page as to what's working well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Repeating a grade, or grade retention, is rarely a good choice for a child who struggles academically, behaviorally, or socially. Repeating a grade often does little to advance a student's skill level in any area.
This is because the ADHD child's brain is “stuck” in a certain pattern of dysregulation that doesn't allow them to sustain concentration on non-stimulating tasks or perform certain executive functioning tasks, such as planning, organizing, and prioritizing their assignments.
ADHD should not be rejected as a possibility because your child is currently doing well academically. Even when academic performance is high, the hidden cost of ADD (ADHD) is often taking a toll. Gifted students with ADD (ADHD) often struggle with anxiety, even when grades are high.
A child who can't seem to sit still, who blurts out answers in class without raising his hand, who doesn't finish his homework, who seems to be daydreaming when the teacher gives instructions—these are well-known symptoms of ADHD.
So, can a child with ADHD be good at school? Various studies on ADHD have shown that these children can achieve great success if they are given adequate attention by their teachers, experts, and parents.
ADHD symptoms can make math more difficult. But ADHD can also increase your chances of having a co-occurring math learning disorder called dyscalculia. Statistics from the early 2000s (the most recent available) suggest that 31 percent of students with ADHD also have a math disability.
For children with ADHD, “school too often starts with failure … and goes downhill from there.”1 With failure rates double to triple those of other children, about 50 percent repeat a grade by adolescence. Thirty-five percent eventually drop out of school and only 5 percent complete college.
Homeschooling offers great benefits and flexibility that are perfect for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Providing your child with ADHD an education that can be catered to their needs helps them gain confidence and perform better academically.
Gifted children often are asked “If you're so good at doing that, why can't you do this?” Gifted children with ADHD often show heightened intensity and sensitivity, but they are set up to fail in a system that only recognizes and expects intellectual proclivity without consideration of their emotional needs.
Focus on short-term goals.
Children with ADHD benefit from short-term learning goals. Some can focus only on completing assigned tasks one day at a time. Others may benefit from a half-day goal that breaks up their day with more than one sense of accomplishment and feeling of success.
Students who have ADHD explain that they get lots of different thoughts at the same time. It's confusing and they are always in trouble with someone. They feel unpopular and know that sometimes they are difficult to like. From the student's point of view, nobody seems to understand them.
ADHD is often also associated with lower intelligence quotient (IQ; e.g., Crosbie and Schachar, 2001). For instance, Frazier et al. (2004) reported in their meta-analysis that in comparison to individuals without ADHD, individuals with ADHD score an average of 9 points lower on most commercial IQ tests.
ADHD can make completing tasks such as school work, homework, or work projects much more difficult. However, there is no clear link between ADHD and IQ. A person may have a high, average, or low IQ score and also have ADHD. ADHD may cause a person to interrupt in class or perform poorly on tests.
The exam season can be a very stressful time in general, but for those who struggle with ADHD, it can be especially difficult. If you have ADHD, you might find it hard to identify what you need to focus on, or struggle to sit down and revise the material.
"Although many adults with ADHD have very successful careers, others struggle with a variety of challenges, including poor communication skills, distractibility, poor memory, time management issues, lack of interpersonal skills, procrastination, hyperactivity and difficulty managing complex projects."
Students don't conveniently melt into the background and just go through the motions of attending classes and going home. They become self-advocates – Private schools for ADHD kids usually provide additional academic support for students, primarily geared towards helping them become self-advocates.
ADHD brains have low levels of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is linked arm-in-arm with dopamine. Dopamine is the thing that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure center. The ADHD brain has impaired activity in four functional regions of the brain.