Understanding ADHD
The main difference between the Inattentive presentation and the Hyperactive/Impulsive presentation.
What is the primary cluster of symptoms (difficulty focusing vs. difficulty sitting still)?
This category of medication, including brand names like Adderall and Ritalin, is the most commonly prescribed for managing ADHD symptoms.
What are Stimulants?
This is the developmental stage, typically Preschool to early Elementary, where physical hyperactivity, like constant running or climbing, is often most overt and leads to the first professional evaluation.
What is Early Childhood (or Ages 3-7)?
A common classroom accommodation that involves breaking down large tasks into smaller, time-bound steps to reduce overwhelm.
What is chunking?
This foundational management tool involves breaking down a day's activities into a predictable sequence, which helps minimize anxiety and supports task initiation.
What is a Routine (or Schedule)?
The term for the brain's system responsible for crucial abilities like planning, working memory, and self-regulation, which is often affected by ADHD.
What are executive functions?
his behavioral strategy involves systematically ignoring undesirable behaviors while immediately rewarding and praising positive, desired behaviors.
What is Positive Reinforcement (or Behavior Modification)?
This formal, legally-binding document provides students with ADHD accommodations like preferential seating or extended time but does not modify the academic curriculum or instruction.
What is a 504 Plan?
A pre-reading step where a student skims the headings, bold text, and images of a chapter to build a mental framework before engaging in deeper reading.
What is a reading Strategy: Previewing?
This specific technique helps individuals transition smoothly between tasks by providing verbal or visual warnings at set intervals, such as 5 minutes or 1 minute, before an activity must end.
What is a Transition Warning?
The three core symptom clusters of ADHD are Inattention, Impulsivity, and this third behavior.
What is Hyperactivity?
The primary non-pharmacological treatment for ADHD in children, which often involves parent training and classroom strategies; also focuses on changing negative thought patterns and behaviors related to ADHD challenges like poor time management or frustration tolerance.
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?
The transition to Middle School is often where ADHD deficits become most apparent, particularly problems managing assignments, books, and tracking responsibilities from multiple teachers, a breakdown of this specific executive function.
What is Organizational and Planning Skills?
An instructional tool that uses visual steps, symbols, or sentence starters (like "First," "Next," and "In conclusion,") to help students plan and organize paragraphs before drafting.
What is a Writing Strategy: Graphic Organizer (or Writing/Sentence Frame)?
This common behavioral challenge refers to the difficulty perceiving the passage of time accurately, often leading to problems with prioritizing, pacing, and meeting deadlines.
What is Time Blindness?
This critical brain chemical, key for regulating motivation and reward, is typically deficient or inefficiently managed in the ADHD brain.
What is Dopamine?
This non-medical intervention focuses specifically on training organizational, planning, and time management skills, often through one-on-one sessions.
What is Executive Function Coaching?
This is the most effective and common accommodation for high school students with inattention, specifically addressing the tendency to lose focus and make careless errors on long tasks like standardized tests.
What is Providing a distraction-reduced environment (or Preferential Testing Location)?
This technique involves taking a brief, structured pause when feeling frustrated, such as counting to ten or taking three deep breaths, to activate the prefrontal cortex and regain self-control.
What is an Emotional Control Strategy: Delayed Response (or Pausing)?
This term describes the management strategy of using visual aids like whiteboards, reminder apps, or checklists to hold information that the ADHD brain struggles to maintain in its short-term cognitive process.
What is Externalizing Working Memory?
The term for the frequent occurrence of ADHD alongside another condition, such as anxiety, depression, or a learning disorder like Dyslexia.
What is Comorbidity?
The consensus among major studies, including the landmark MTA Study, is that this approach provides superior, long-term outcomes for children with severe symptoms.
What is Combined/Multimodal Treatment (or Medication and Behavioral Therapy)?
The chronic failure of this specific executive function, which involves the ability to pause and think before acting, significantly impairs high school peer relationships and is the root cause of impulsive social errors.
What is Response Inhibition?
This term describes the intense emotional pain and distress a student with ADHD experiences when they perceive they have failed or been rejected, which is addressed through strategies like re-framing or mindfulness.
What is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)?
challenge, this specific executive function deficit is the ability to monitor, evaluate, and adjust one's own behavior and effort during a task to reach a desired outcome.
What is Self-Monitoring?