If you have trouble with executive function, these things are more difficult to do. You may also show a weakness with working memory, which is like "seeing in your mind's eye." This is an important tool in guiding your actions.
- A strategy for action (e.g. having a day planner)
- Paying attention when the assignment is put on the board and prioritizing the act of writing down your notes over any other activity at that moment.
- And even if you have a day planner, you have to remember where it is, find it in time to use it and track down a pencil as well.
- The stress continues as you must hold the information in your mind long enough to get it on paper while avoiding procrastination or assuming it can be written down later (both prioritizing and holding thoughts in mind rely on executive function).
- Then you must get the planner back in the correct place in what is probably a chaotic mess in your backpack. And that's only an abbreviated list.
Executive Function And Educational Policy
Many educational choices today put children with ADHD at a further disadvantage. From classroom design to curriculum, schools place huge demands on executive function. For a child with ADHD, already years behind peers in this area of development, the gap grows between what is expected and their actual skills.
Traditional curricula rely on sustained instruction regarding the basic building blocks for any subject. These techniques are presently out of fashion in mainstream settings. However, if you ask experts in almost any field, they will tell you that we require automaticity of the basics before acquiring advanced skills. You can't play a Mozart sonata without first learning to play the scales fluently.
Many popular programs used in schools today rely on 'experiential learning,' playing down the crucial need for a solid academic base built through routine and memorization.
While experts often thrive without much guidance, nearly everyone else thrives when provided with full, explicit instructional guidance (and should not be asked to discover any essential content or skills)... Decades of research clearly demonstrate that for novices (comprising virtually all students), direct, explicit instruction is more effective and more efficient than partial guidance.
Delays in executive function skills in ADHD, meanwhile, often make assimilation of new information particularly difficult. To develop expertise in any area of academics, even more than other students children with ADHD need repetition, routine and a solid foundation of academic facts. Without it, the academic gap grow.
What do these modern curricula look like?
- Silent reading time is emphasized
For someone with ADHD who is distractible, impulsive and behind in reading skills, there is an unrealistic expectation they will attend, behave and basically teach themselves during this unstructured instructional time.
children who struggle to organize their thoughts are asked over and over again to create coherent essays without a linear outline.
children still counting on their fingers are pushed to not only solve higher-level problems but to show their work, an activity relies again on their ability to organize and get their ideas on paper.
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