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Spring Fever + ADHD = Headaches: How School Counselors Can Help

By Julia Taylor for American School Counselor Association

Spring has sprung. For students with ADHD, this time of year may be particularly demanding. For teachers with students with ADHD, it may be even more difficult, as it's not unusual for ADHD students to have more behavior disruptions this time of year.

School counselors can help teachers by offering the following suggestions:

• Sit ADHD students close to the teacher and board, away from the window if possible.
• Make up a "look" to give the student/s with ADHD if their behavior is getting out of control, this way they are not receiving "extra" attention for disruption and still are aware of their inappropriate behavior.
• Try to stay away from long lectures and large group work during this time. Break tasks up and allow students to work in smaller groups.
• Give snack/water/restroom breaks during examinations, if allowed.
• Sit student near students who are "hard" workers.
• If student is a disruption during testing, allow him/herself to test in your office or an empty space where he or she can work alone.
• Allow students to hold an object such as a squeeze ball, rubber band, or other toy to keep them focused.
• Give rewards for writing all assignments down in planner or assignment calendar.
• Don't lose your patience with students; instead, make up a point system with student offering rewards for positive behavior, and consequences for outbursts.
• Try to communicate often with parents – a quick email, phone call, or note home will suffice.

School counselors can offer assistance by:

• Starting a group for students with ADHD!
• Allowing students to eat lunch in your office and go for a walk with you around the building when finished.
• Teaching students relaxation techniques they can use when feeling fidgety.
• Helping students clean out their locker/notebooks and organize materials that may have collected over the year.
• Checking in with students periodically so they are reminded that you are staying on top of them!

It is important for everyone involved with ADHD students to constantly praise positive behavior and keep in mind that the school year is almost over!

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In this card game, players are dealt Stop, Relax & Think cards, as well as Stressed Out, Confused, and Discouraged cards. As they acquire more cards, they must choose different self-control skills, and they learn the value of patience and cooperating with others to achieve a goal.

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In this uniquely designed book, children can practice what to say and how to act in eight different scenarios common to children with behavioral problems.

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This fun and educational ball teaches children to control their impulsivity by helping them understand and control their actions

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ABOUT JULIA TAYLOR

Julia Taylor is an intern at the American School Counselor Association. She is completing her master's degree in school counseling at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN SCHOOL COUNSELOR ASSOCIATION

Professional school counselors everywhere share the same vision to support their schools by serving their students. School counselors know that guiding students toward personal and social development leads to improved academic achievement. Through their partnership with principals and teachers, school counselors help prepare today's students to become tomorrow's adults.

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) responds to school counselors' unique needs, helping them grow individually as professionals and providing them with real tools to guide their students. As an international nonprofit organization founded in 1952, ASCA has the benefit of foresight and hindsight. It has grown to fit counselors' changing needs through social and educational movements from desegregation to standardized testing. Responding to the needs of counselors as voiced by counselors has enabled ASCA to remain vital and forward-thinking.

ASCA serves as the voice of school counselors on Capitol Hill and helps members ensure their voices are heard in state legislatures. ASCA has active government affairs representatives who monitor activities in Congress, the Department of Education and throughout Washington to advocate on behalf of school counselors' interests: funding, certification, student-to-counselor ratios and more.

A full-color bimonthly magazine, School Counselor provides practical information and how-to articles to help school counselors help their students and themselves. Each issue has a focus on something school counselors care about, from public relations to grief counseling, as well as departments and columns covering a range of topics. Professional School Counseling is ASCA's award-winning bimonthly academic journal, providing peer-reviewed articles on school counseling theory, research, practice and techniques. The journal and the magazine together provide counselors with the most well-rounded and up-to-date information in the field.

For more information, visit www.schoolcounselor.org or call (703) 683-ASCA.

LOOKING FOR HANDS-ON COUNSELING TOOLS?

Visit the Guidance Channel Shopping Mall! There you will find thousands of resources, many of them national and international award-winners, including reproducible handouts, therapeutic games, multimedia programs, videos, curricula, prevention-awareness items and much more. Be sure to check out our online Childswork/Childsplay catalog, as well as our At-Risk Resources and Wellness Reproductions online catalogs, for innovative tools to address the social and emotional needs of your clients.

FOR ADDITIONAL NEWSLETTERS...

If you've found The Counselor's Classroom useful and informative, you may also be interested in subscribing to some of our other newsletters. Dr. Playwell's Newsletter is a unique newsletter full of play therapy techniques to help you address the social and emotional needs of children and young adolescents. FYI From Wellness offers practical tips and suggestions for use in the clinic or classroom written by professionals from a variety of disciplines. The Guidance Channel Zine is a monthly online magazine that includes interviews, website reviews, statistics and articles by many national organizations such as the National Association of School Psychologists, the American School Counselor Association and National S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violence Everywhere).

Teaching Strategies To Help Children With AD/HD

By Lynda Van Kuren for ChildsWork/ChildsPlay

Teaching students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can challenge a teacher's skills. But with up to 3.5 million of the nation's children suffering from this disorder, it is a challenge our educators must be prepared to meet. Fortunately, new developments in the field are providing educators with new ways to help children cope with ADD/ADHD and succeed in school.

Current research shows that previous strategies used to help children with ADD/ADHD, such as removing all external stimuli, actually decrease the concentration of children with ADD/ADHD. These children respond to - and need - some external stimulation. Thus, allowing a child with ADD/ADHD to move around, doodle, or squeeze a small ball while in class can increase his or her concentration.

Another technique teachers must master to work effectively with students with ADD/ADHD is to balance structure with novelty and creativity. The educator must create enough structure to enable the child to function but provide enough stimulation to keep his or her interest. One way to accomplish this dual task is to give children with ADD/ADHD thematic projects. Thematic projects allow children with ADD/ADHD to pursue their interests and be active participants in their learning. As a result, they stay on task. Another tactic teachers can employ is to present material in novel ways, which will help capture the attention and interest of children with ADD/ADHD. Examples include turning an assignment into a game and providing students with ADD/ADHD with choice in their assignments. Thus, the child could write a story, draw a picture, give a report, or make a computer graphic about a book they've read.

"You need a large bag of tricks to choose from," says Ann Welch, professor at Bridgewater University. "Teachers need to find a comfortable marriage between structure and organization that comes from traditional teaching and child-centered teaching. Children with ADD/ADHD are driven by their interests. We must increase their interest in what they are working on,"

Another area in which teachers often need to help students with ADD/ADHD is in organizational skills. Again, the teacher must find the delicate balance -- between too much and not enough organizational assistance. Because so many students with ADD/ADHD have difficulty with organization, some teachers and parents have provided their students with organizational structure for every part of their day. However, with this approach, students fail to learn how to organize for themselves. Those who work with students with ADD/ADHD need to discover those areas in which the child is organizing things well by him or herself, then help the child expand that system to other areas of his or her life. Or, the teacher can begin by giving students with ADD/ADHD extensive organizational assistance and then teach them organizational skills. As the students become more adept at organization, the teacher gradually reduces the organizational aids they provide.

Children with ADD/ADHD also need a lot of feedback and high levels of praise and reinforcement. While this sounds simple, it isn't, particularly for students with ADD/ADHD whose symptoms can look like simple misbehavior. Research shows that students with behavioral problems receive 50 percent less praise than other children. So, those who work with children with ADD/ADHD must make an extra effort to give praise and reinforce the smallest steps in the right direction.

Other Classroom Strategies

Some other classroom strategies teachers can use to help their students with ADD/ADHD include:

• Make sure the student is seated in a location that works for him or her. This may not always mean placing the student front and center of the classroom. Experiment -- and ask the student -- where he or she works best.
• Provide an individualized, written schedule the student can refer to when needed.
• Assign the student a "study buddy" if the student needs one-on-one attention to complete assignments.
• Ensure the school environment is stable: make sure school supplies are in the same location each day.
• Inform the child ahead of time if there will be a disruption in the usual routine (a school assembly), and give him or her time to transition from one activity to another.
• Provide a second set of textbooks for the student to keep at home.
• Inform the student's parents of the techniques you are using in the classroom, so they can reinforce them at home.
• Ask parents which strategies work best at home. Work with the student's parents to provide consistent reinforcement of positive behaviors.

Reach Out To Others

Teachers should also reach out to professionals from other disciplines to help their students with ADD/ADHD. For example, occupational therapists can help students with ADD/ADHD who have fine motor problems, which affect handwriting skills. Speech-language therapists are also helping students with ADD/ADHD. Some students with ADD/ADHD have language problems or have difficulty keeping multiple pieces of information in their mind. Speech-language therapists can give these students word retrieval strategies or help them develop conversational skills.

Also, nearly half of our students with ADD/ADHD have other medical or learning problems, such as anxiety, depression, or a learning disability. In these instances, the teacher may want to work with a school counselor, school psychologist, or special education teacher to provide additional services for their students with ADD/ADHD.

"We are branching out to many more disciplines for students with ADD or ADHD," says Welch. "With kids with more serious cases of ADD or with ADD and some other condition, we need school personnel to work together as a team."

What About Medication?

Placing a student on medication to help him or her cope with ADD/ADHD is a decision that should not be made lightly. Each child must be looked at individually to determine whether behavior therapy, medication, or a combination of both is the best treatment. Additionally, only a physician should recommend medication for ADD/ADHD, and parents should make sure their physician's background includes ADD/ADHD diagnosis and treatment. If a child is given medication, a team should be implemented to gauge the student's new productivity levels as well as any adverse side effects. Team members should include parents, teachers, and the student, in addition to the doctor's close supervision. Such a process helps ensure an appropriate dosage of the medication. Also, the physician should see the child and confer with parents and school personnel more than once a year to ensure the continuation of appropriate dosage levels.

The Positive Side Of ADD/ADHD

Surprisingly, ADD/ADHD is not all bad! For example, the flip side of hyperactivity is energy, which can be channeled into constructive activity. Or, the flip side of impulsiveness is spontaneity; of inattention, creativity; and of bossiness, leadership. If we can help students with ADD/ADHD turn their "deficits" into assets, they will thrive in school and in the workplace.