ADHD: What's going on in their heads?

OK, welcome back! I'm so glad you returned to learn more about ADHD! I have so much to share that I want you to learn about and understand!

Today I want to talk about the brain. Specifically the brain inside a person with ADHD. So let's not waste time, shall we?

I'll start with giving you some key points to remember about how ADHD affects the brain. In ADHD brains, there is a 10-12% reduction of the size of key brain areas. Brain activity show abnormal patterns, and, this one is seriously important and significant, there is a THREE YEAR delay in brain maturation! Let's look at this implication. For first grade teachers like me, you've got 6 year old children with brains that, in some areas, function like that of a 3 year old! Fifth grade teachers, you've got 11 year olds with the coping skills of second graders... and middle schoolers with the needs of elementary kids. That's BIG!

The good news about the maturation is this, they DO catch up! When kids with ADHD become adults, their brains do catch up with them and mature on up. Adults still have many of the struggles and difficulties because of their ADHD, but some of the symptoms can and do improve. But overall, despite what some may think, you do NOT grow "out" of ADHD. Instead, some symptoms change, some improve, and the older you get, the better the coping skills.

ADHD is also linked to a 30% developmental delay, this of course is because of that delayed brain maturation, so naturally certain skills take some time to develop and appear. Let's look at a special case with my own son, Joshua. He is your poster child, and I do not mean that lightly; he is THE poster child for ADHD. *smile* He is also intellectually gifted. (more on that later) When he was a youngun, between the ages of 15 and 28 months, I felt a mother's concern because he was not learning speech as well as he should have been for his age. We taught him sign language, as is common in children, and I was almost wondering if it was keeping him from speaking. Then I worried about his hearing, as when I was a child, I had some problems with my ears and my hearing. Had him checked out, all good. They could find no physical reason why my son was not learning normal speech. He started speech therapy to help him develop his speech. A little after 2, he grew out of the program he was in, and I couldn't get him into the other available one because his cognitive abilities were too high, it was simply his speech that was delayed. The therapy he was in did help, but still slow going. But, his speech did come, and he had no slur, impediment, or anything. It just came late. And the way he talks now, you'd NEVER know that he started talking late. *smiles again*

Ok, so the point is, many skills that you would expect children to have could be delayed because of ADHD. Most of you I'm sure just don't know, or think about that. Now maybe you will. :)

Now, like many other disorders and diseases, ADHD occurs in varying degrees, depending on the level of brain activity and delay. There may be mild, moderate, or severe cases of the disorder.

Let's talk about the executive function again, which I mentioned in my last post, the conductor of the orchestra, if you will. Let's talk about some of the key brain functions that are controlled by executive function. It controls many aspects of the brain, such as working memory and recall, activation, alertness, and effort, problem solving, analyzing, organizing, planning for the future, ability to "self-talk," control of emotions,  and transitioning and inhibition.  Students with executive function deficits have limited working memory space, which basically means that they can't handle as much as others can when working. While your "average" student can read a word problem, think about the pieces, the numbers, the question, and the steps they need to take to solve the problem, your ADHD child is still trying to figure out how what the question is. To make a child successful, we have to limit the demands on this limited working space. More good news here, these deficits in executive function will continue to grow and develop well into the ages of 30 and 40.

Well, I think I've worked your brain enough tonight learning about the ADHD brain, so I'll stop for now. Next installment I'll discuss other disorders that commonly occur concurrently with ADHD and medications. Have a good night!

I want to give some acknowledgements about this and future installments. The information I am delivering to you has come from a variety of sources. A great deal of it came from an organization called CHADD, which I encourage you to check out on your own. I credit the book CHADD Educator's Manual on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Dr. Mabe at Georgia Regents' University, my son's private doctors, and my own ongoing research and experiences, all of which help me learn more and more about this complex condition, in order that I may share it with you.

ADHD: A working definition for educators

ADHD- These letters stand for "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It is defined by Dr. Thomas Brown as "a neurobiological disorder that is characterized by inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity, and for some, hyperactivity." In other words, it starts in the BRAIN. It is an actual disorder in which chemicals in the brain are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. PET scans actually show significant differences in the brain function and activity of a person with ADHD and a person who does not have the disorder. You may be surprised to learn that the brain of people with ADHD is actually performing less activity than the brain of their "normal" counterparts. But people with ADHD are so active you say... some of them are, and what is really happening is these people are trying to cope; they daydream, fidget, squirm, all in attempts to activate areas of the brain that are not functioning properly, or at all.

ADHD deals largely with a neurological concept called executive function. Executive function is like the "conductor" of the orchestra. It tells all the other parts of the brain what to do and when. In adults and children with ADHD, the executive function of the brain is malfunctioning, or ceasing to operate altogether. Picture an orchestra with no conductor. The flutes are playing one melody while the clarinet pipes out another. Meanwhile the drums are playing faster than the saxophones, which are playing slower than the tubas. It's musical chaos, pain to the eardrums, and by no means a musical performance you'd like to hear. This is what the brain of someone with ADHD is like. Take myself for example. While I'm cooking supper, trying to figure out what to add to the pan I'm frying pork chops in, I'm also thinking about what I taught in math this morning, what Johnny and Sue were arguing about, how I forgot to get milk at the store, what I might see on tonight's episode of Bones, AND that I still have to take a shower. I'm thinking these things ALL at the SAME time. I can't just focus on one thing at a time. It's like I'm thinking about everything at once. That's what a deficit in executive function will do to you. It makes it difficult to focus on just one task at a time and give all your energy to it. I'll talk more about specific problems that are associated with executive function later. First of all, let's look at the three categories, if you will, of ADHD.

           **ADHD Predominately Inattentive- this person experiences more difficulty in the area of attentiveness, meaning he/she
                        - doesn't pay attention to details, and often makes careless mistakes
                        - has a hard time "staying on task"
                        - seems like he or she doesn't listen
                        - doesn't complete tasks that are started
                        - is disorganized
                        - avoids work
                        - loses things
                        - is easily distracted
                        - is forgetful
            ** ADHD Predominately Hyperactive/Impulsive - this person exhibits major difficulties in experiencing hyperactivity and impulsivity, meaning he/she
                       - often can't sit still- is fidgety or squirms
                       - runs or climbs, is always moving
                       - has difficulty playing quietly (this doesn't mean impossible)
                       - acts as if "driven by a motor"
                       - Talks a lot and often loudly
                       - shouts out frequently
                       - can't seem to wait his/her turn
                       - interrupts or pushes way into conversations
                       - is reactionary - IE acts before thinking of results, think of running into the road without   looking

            ** ADHD Combined- this one is obvious; this person experiences symptoms of both ADHD Inattentive and ADHD Hyperactive/Impulsive.

Ok, so that is your introduction in to the world of ADHD. I have given you a fairly working definition and some basic symptoms of the disorder. Is it starting to sound like a student or adult you know? I'm sure at least one comes to mind. ADHD is much more prevalent that you may think. Right now, I have not one, but 4 students in my class who have the condition. It's something to think about...

In my next installment I will discuss more in detail about some of the things that your students with ADHD have going on in their head, so you can really understand what they are battling each and every day in their lives, and hopefully this will help you to understand why coping in the regular classroom is such a tremendous job for them.

I want to give some acknowledgements about this and future installments. The information I am delivering to you has come from a variety of sources. A great deal of it came from an organization called CHADD, which I encourage you to check out on your own. I credit the book CHADD Educator's Manual on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Dr. Mabe at Georgia Regents' University, my son's private doctors, and my own ongoing research and experiences, all of which help me learn more and more about this complex condition, in order that I may share it with you.

ADHD: My pledge

Ok, so I have been absent for a little while. Ok... a long while, life gets way busier than it ever should be. But I'm going to try to do better. Promise. *key word try :) *

I've decided to go in a second direction with the blog, and not just talk about the cool things that I do in class. This afternoon I was working on a presentation I will be doing at a local University. Every year they have a conference for up and coming and current teachers to share learning and teaching strategies to improve student learning. Well, I have been given a whole 55 minutes to teach about my topic, which is generally how to accommodate for students with ADHD. Well, truth be told, there is no way on earth I can share everything I want to share about ADHD in an hour's time, so I had to strategically pick points I wanted to cover in the time I was given. This frustrated me greatly, namely because of my passion for educating the masses about ADHD. So as I was cutting, and cutting, and trimming, from my presentation, I remembered this blog that is in the corner gathering dust. I was like, HEY! I will use the blog to share my passion, which really was part of my original intention for the creation of the blog, but as I said, life got in the way. I am going to do my best to dedicating a bit of time, as often as possible, to sharing facts and information about ADHD, and then strategies and accommodations in working with children with the condition. So I will blog a bit at at time, giving valuable info about a condition I live with and work with every day. I hope to gain some followers in this way, and I encourage you who do follow to post questions in the comments section about my posts, especially about things you would specifically like to know about in dealing with ADHD, and I will try to address them as I blog. I would like for it to start out informational, and then continue as an interactive forum, which allows me to help all teachers, and parents, who work with children with ADHD.

So there it is. My pledge to teach as many as I can about ADHD. I am going to go feed my family, then come back and do my first post, to give some definitions and descriptions of the disorder. Happy following!