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Why Writing Falls Apart for Students with ADHD
Discover why handwriting interventions often fail students with ADHD. Learn how executive function breakdowns, not motor skills, are the real barrier, and what to do instead.
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Functional Cognition: The Missing Strategy in ADHD Support
ADHD is grossly misunderstood as a “behavioral condition,” one where individuals simply need to “try harder” or “behave better.” This view not only misrepresents the condition but also leads to ineffective interventions that fail to support the core challenges individuals with ADHD face. ADHD isn’t about willpower or behavior, it’s a neurodevelopmental difference that fundamentally…
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The Most Effective Sensory Support for Learners with ADHD
ADHD and sensory issues? The most effective evidence-based classroom sensory support for learners with ADHD.
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Shifting Focus from Effort to Strategy: Empowering Students with ADHD
Effort is a fundamental aspect of success, or so we’ve been led to believe. From early childhood, we’re taught the value of trying our best, of giving it our all. However, when it comes to students with ADHD, this traditional emphasis on effort can be both misleading and counterproductive. False Growth Mindset Carol Dweck’s concept…
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Overcoming Homework Challenges for Students with ADHD
With Halloween just around the corner, let’s delve into something that can be downright scary for many families – homework. For students with ADHD, the challenges with homework often feels like a nightly horror show, and caregivers can relate to the suspense of watching a scary movie unfold, yelling, “No! Don’t do it. Don’t open…
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How to Support Handwriting Acquisition for Students with ADHD
tudents with ADHD learn best from structured and explicit instruction. This post will provide the reader with evidence-based interventions that I use to support, differentiate and make explicit some of the more implicit expectations found in the common handwriting curriculum used in many classrooms today. The strategies align with educational best practices, best practices for students with ADHD, and best practices for school-based occupational therapy.
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Accommodations for Students with ADHD
Accommodations are Evidenced Based Interventions Accommodations are one of the most effective evidence-based interventions available for students with ADHD in school. When designed correctly and implemented with fidelity, they immediately improve the fit between the student, the task, and the environment , reducing barriers to performance without changing the curriculum or the standard. And yet,…
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ADHD and Written Expression
A Challenge Even For the “Handwriting Experts.” Handwriting difficulties are the most common reason for referral to school-based occupational therapy (OT). However, even moat school-based therapists question how to provide effective and appropriate support for written expression difficulties in students with ADHD. The most frequently asked questions I hear from other therapists are most likely…
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Executive Functions for Classroom Performance- The 30% Rule
ADHD is a disorder of self-regulation and executive functioning. Executive functions are a set of cognitive processes that act as the brain’s management system. These mental functions help us “execute” any task in our daily life that is not reflexive or habitual. In school, executive functions are needed all day long for self-control, planning, and…
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Engagement vs. Compliance: What Students with ADHD Need to Participate
A student can sit quietly, finish every worksheet, and still be checked out. For students with ADHD, the gap between compliance and engagement matters even more. Here’s what gets in the way, and how NICE AMP helps school teams change the conditions instead of adding pressure.
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It Is Never Just Behavior
There is a small word that does an enormous amount of damage in schools, and most of us say it without flinching. We say it in the hallway, in the team meeting, and in the note home.
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Summer Writing for ADHD: Why Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect
Somewhere along the way we were all handed the same tidy little promise, that practice makes perfect, and for writing support with a child who has ADHD it is one of the most expensive myths going. Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. What wires together fires together Every time a child repeats a…
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Clip Charts and ADHD: What Public Behavior Charts Are Actually Doing to Kids With ADHD
As classrooms get packed up for the year, there is one thing I would love to see taken down and stored in the trash… the clip chart. But not just the obvious red-yellow-green version. The ClassDojo, tokens, hole punches, points, or any other system that broadcasts a child’s behavioral performance. The format may change,…
