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Why is school so hard for people with ADHD?

School can be incredibly challenging for students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to focus, control impulses, and regulate activity levels. These difficulties lead to major struggles with things like paying attention in class, completing homework, studying for tests, and managing time. As a result, many kids with ADHD fall behind academically and have trouble reaching their full potential in school.

Inattention and focus problems

One of the hallmark symptoms of ADHD is difficulty sustaining attention and focus. Students with ADHD often have trouble staying focused during lectures, while reading textbooks, and when working independently on projects or assignments. Their minds tend to drift and wander, making it hard to absorb and retain information. This makes it challenging to learn new material, follow complex instructions, and complete tasks from start to finish. Paying attention in class for long periods of time can feel nearly impossible for students with ADHD.

In addition, people with ADHD struggle with prioritizing and organizing information. Important details may get overlooked, while unimportant things capture their focus. This makes it hard for students with ADHD to identify key points and concepts when studying. They may read pages of text but have little comprehension or recall because their attention flits about instead of zeroing in on what matters most.

Problems with sustaining focus lead to issues like missing instructions, neglecting details, making careless mistakes, forgetting to turn in work, and losing track of time. These difficulties make it hard for kids with ADHD to live up to their academic potential.

Hyperactivity and impulse control

Many students with ADHD also deal with hyperactivity and impulsiveness. They may squirm, fidget, tap their feet, get up out of their seats at inappropriate times, talk excessively, interrupt others, and generally struggle with controlling their behavior. Hyperactivity makes it incredibly difficult to comply with the rules and structure of a classroom setting. Sitting still for long periods goes against the nature of a hyperactive child.

Problems with impulse control cause additional challenges at school. Kids with ADHD often call out answers without raising their hands, talk over others, clown around, make inappropriate comments, and touch or play with objects within their reach. They may snatch items from classmates rather than waiting their turn. Poor impulse control also leads to behaviors like jumping out of the seat without permission to walk around the room, opening a window when hot, or packing up early while others are still working. These disruptive behaviors can lead to conflicts with teachers and peers.

The hyperactivity and impulsivity of ADHD lead to struggles with following rules, cooperating, and inhibiting distracting behaviors. This can wreak havoc in a structured classroom environment. Students with ADHD often get labeled as troublemakers and bad kids, even though their behaviors stem from a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Executive functioning difficulties

ADHD also involves impairments with executive functioning skills. Executive functions are top-down mental processes that help us manage tasks, thoughts, emotions, and behavior. They include things like working memory, time management, organization, planning, prioritizing, task initiation, and emotional control. Since the prefrontal cortex of the brain governs executive functioning, ADHD deficits in this area correspond with the underdevelopment and impaired connectivity often seen in the prefrontal regions of people with ADHD.

Executive functioning difficulties exacerbate the challenges that come with inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. With poor working memory, students with ADHD often forget assignments, content they studied, and instructions from teachers. Difficulty managing time results in lateness, missed deadlines, and procrastination. Disorganization leads to lost books, papers, and supplies. Problems planning and prioritizing make starting and completing long-term projects overwhelming. Task initiation issues can cause paralysis with getting started on homework and assignments.

These executive functioning impairments make the workload and expectations of school incredibly difficult. Kids with ADHD constantly lose materials, fail to turn in assignments on time, and forget to study for tests. Trying to keep up with the organization, planning, time management, and self-regulation that school requires takes monumental effort for students with ADHD.

Social and emotional struggles

Along with academic problems, school is often socially and emotionally challenging for children with ADHD. Their symptoms and behaviors make it difficult to connect with peers, cooperate effectively, and form positive relationships with teachers. Kids with ADHD often get overly excited in play leading to aggressive behavior and conflict. Reckless impulsivity causes them to break rules and annoy classmates. They usually need more adult intervention to maintain self-control and solve interpersonal problems.

The social difficulties of ADHD become especially prominent by late elementary school. ADHD students tend to be more immature, bossy, intrusive, and defiant compared to peers. Classmates may see their behaviors as intentionally annoying. As a result, children with ADHD often experience peer rejection, exclusion, and victimization. They may struggle with loneliness and making friends due to social skills deficits. All of this can impact their motivation to go to school, sense of school belonging, self-esteem, and mental health.

Kids with ADHD also have higher rates of associated conditions like learning disabilities, oppositional defiant disorder, anxiety, and depression. The added challenges of these coexisting disorders increase the risk for school failure, grade retention, school discipline problems, and dropout.

Difficulty with school work

Symptoms of ADHD combine to make the actual process of doing school work extremely tedious and frustrating for many kids. Sitting still to complete assignments requires immense effort. Staying focused during independent seatwork feels nearly impossible with constant distraction from their own thoughts and stimuli around them. Hyperactivity leads to fidgeting and restlessness after just a few minutes. Starting an assignment seems monumental when they have problems with task initiation. Remembering multi-step directions, organizing papers and materials, and staying on task without getting sidetracked are all extremely challenging for someone with ADHD.

Most students with ADHD struggle immensely with homework completion. After a long day trying to hold it together in class, focusing during homework feels unmanageable. They may procrastinate and avoid assignments due to feeling overwhelmed. Hyperfocusing for hours on video games while putting off homework is also common. With their impaired working memory, bringing completed assignments from home to school poses another challenge. Missing homework grades due to forgetfulness and disorganization take a cumulative toll.

Tests and exams are another area of major difficulty for students with ADHD. Studying for tests requires sustained focus over time, which does not come naturally for them. Synthesizing and memorizing key information gets disrupted by divided attention and distraction. Disorganization leads to difficulty keeping track of study materials. Test-taking itself requires maintained concentration and rapid yet careful responding, which are impediments for those with ADHD.

All of these factors lead to kids with ADHD performing substantially worse on tests compared to their actual knowledge and intellect. Their grades often reflect the dysfunction of their ADHD symptoms rather than their true abilities.

How schools can help

While ADHD certainly stacks the odds against success in school, effective interventions and support can help students reach their potential. Here are some ways schools can assist children with ADHD:

  • Provide preferential seating near the teacher to minimize distractions
  • Allow breaks for movement or sensory input when focus starts fading
  • Offer written instructions and notes to supplement verbal directions
  • Use headphones, white noise, or minimally distracting workspaces
  • Give reminders and checklists for materials, homework, projects
  • Break long assignments into chunks
  • Grant extended time on tests and room to move during tests
  • Set up an organization system for papers and supplies
  • Provide access to counselors, social skills training, special education services
  • Collaborate with parents on behavior plans and medication timing
  • Train teachers on ADHD interventions through professional development

With compassion, teamwork, and the right support, students with ADHD can thrive and overcome obstacles. Educational accommodations along with medical, behavioral, emotional, and organizational interventions allow students with ADHD to reach their academic potential.

Conclusion

ADHD presents formidable challenges in the classroom environment due to symptoms like inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and executive functioning deficits. Staying focused during lessons, completing assignments, resisting distraction, organizing materials, regulating behavior, and managing time and tasks are all areas of profound struggle. But with the appropriate modifications, strategies, assistance, and compassion from schools and teachers, children with ADHD can absolutely succeed academically as well as socially and emotionally.