Get a Hold of Yourself

It’s becoming a common disorder affecting 3% to 7% of the school-age population. Teachers already have a hard time coping with all their students’ needs through lack of funding and enthusiasm. Early signs can be seen when children are in preschool but the effects can still run rampant even on college campuses. When children aren’t taught how to deal with this disorder, their entire lives can be impacted by this one tiny detail in their genetic make-up. They sit in their offices getting work done and all of a sudden, out of no where…OOO! What a pretty color!

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD is becoming widespread among school-age youths and it is a challenge that many will face continually in their lives. Be it parents, teachers, but most importantly ADHD individuals themselves, something has to be done to help maintain focus and sustain normal moods that don’t consist of jitters and jumps at the slightest hint of excitement.

In a Behavior Modification article, “The Effects of Self-Management in General Education Classrooms on the Organizational Skills of Adolescents with ADHD,” three researchers of Lehigh University compiled a study requiring students suspected or diagnosed with ADHD that could derive ways for youths to cope with their short attention spans and overly energetic personalities. Because males are twice as likely to be affected with ADHD as females, the study consisted of 3 seventh grade boys in regular classroom settings.

All 12-year-olds, they were selected based on teachers’ evaluations of consistency in assignments and attitude in class (e.g. turning in homework, participating effectively in discussion rather than gossiping, being on time) in a Northeastern Pennsylvania public school. The diagnoses of ADHD were confirmed by ratings of hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity through Inattention and Hyperactivity-Impulsivity sub-scores based from home and school tested versions of the ADHD-IV Rating Scale. Each of the students was also interviewed by the authors of the article and experiment.

To narrow their experiment tactics, the researchers focused on using self-management as a tool to help the 3 boys concentrate on their studies and conduct in their classrooms. The boys were required to make a list of six goals they wanted to accomplish at least four of per day. They participated in self-management training sessions beginning in homeroom period of the school day and then each boy was observed in a targeted academic setting (two in Language Arts, one in mathematics). In addition, the students were given doses of me methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin, to alleviate the symptoms of ADHD in hopes of successful results of self-management.

Results were accumulated by a checklist completely by both the students and the teachers. The students didn’t know the teachers were completely the same checklist they were to be using for self-progression and the teachers didn’t know that the boys had been diagnosed with ADHD, creating a completely dependent variable. To ensure results and prevent possible biases, interobserver sessions were held 26 of 83 class periods so that the researchers weren’t relying solely on teachers and students.

Self-management of ADHD consists of 2 components: training to acquire skills and monitoring use of newly acquired skills. The study defined training as each student meeting alone with one of the authors in his homeroom period to learn what self-management meant for his individual situation, focusing on the academic side. Students discussed problems they regularly found themselves in with teachers’ angst. After recognizing areas in which they needed to handle themselves better, students used the goals set and self-evaluated themselves every school day. Monitoring in the study included regular meetings for critiquing of the students’ performance within their six goals. Each week smaller, less overlying goals were set so that a short-term and daily basis monitoring technique could be useful. Peer observation by randomly selected classmates was also used on occasion in the study to give another side of the experiment for comparison. This helped with targeting ADHD students in an atmosphere surrounded by average students, where average students no doubt have an easier time cooperating with education’s demands.

At the conclusion of the experiment, students and teachers were given an evaluation form testing the effectiveness of the intervention of self-management training. “A difference in the level of functioning was evidenced immediately following the change from the training phase into the monitoring phase,” (“Effects” 172). While one student’s baseline data was variable, all the students noticed immediate changes in focus and conduct when training sessions began. The treatment of self-management involving training and monitoring of acquired skills to cope with ADHD had worked!

As with all treatments for any health factor or disorder, there are limitations. But, the experiment shows that there is help in sight for individuals faced with ADHD. It just takes patience, and clearly patience can be taught. However, because Ritalin was used in this experiment it is unclear if self-management can work alone for those with ADHD and the article suggests that someone conduct the same test without the aid of Ritalin. That is something that studies and drug companies would have to work out on their own. It may be possible however that after obtaining excellent self-management skills, that the use of drugs like Ritalin would not be necessary. All in all, students near the same ages of the boys tested with and without ADHD are undergoing dramatic changes where self-management needs to be taught and practiced. For those with ADHD the process is harder, but there is hope and available help.