Description
He can do the work. You have seen him do it. Yet today the worksheet sits untouched, the reminders are piling up, and the conversation keeps drifting toward grades, consequences, and responsibility.
For many students with ADHD, the problem isn’t knowing what to do or caring about the outcome. Starting and sustaining a task that offers little immediate interest or reward depends on executive function processes that ADHD affects, so a good grade six weeks from now does very little to get today’s paragraph written. More reminders address what the student already knows. They don’t change the conditions that are making the task so hard to start.
NICE AMP was created to help school teams change those conditions.
What NICE AMP is
NICE AMP is a practical planning lens built on seven conditions that support engagement: Novelty, Interest, Challenge, External Accountability, Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. It adapts William Dodson’s description of the interest-based nervous system and Daniel Pink’s work on autonomy, mastery, and purpose into a tool you can use with a real assignment during a real class period.
Instead of asking “How do we make this student do the work?” your team asks “What is getting in the way of engagement, and what can we change?” The standard stays the same. You change the way the student gets to it.
What’s included
- Engagement vs Compliance: why a quiet, finished worksheet doesn’t always mean a student is engaged, including Schlechty’s five patterns of student participation
- What Supports Engagement for Students with ADHD: the interest-based nervous system, autonomy, mastery, and purpose, explained in school terms
- Seven condition pages: each NICE AMP condition explained, with 15 to 20 specific classroom examples and how to use them
- The Long-Term Goal: Empowerment: questions that help students learn to recognize and respond to their own performance barriers
- How to Use This Resource, with a completed example planner
- NICE AMP One-Page Guide: all seven conditions on one sheet, with art and math class examples and executive function scaffolds. Use it as a quick reference or hand it to a teacher.
- Engagement Strategy Bank: 140 classroom-ready ideas, 20 for each condition
- Task Engagement Planner for teachers, OTs, and support staff
- Two student sheets, Make This Task Work for Me: a check-and-plan version for younger students or anyone who finds a blank page hard to start, and a write-in version for students who like to put ideas in their own words
- References and terms of use
15-page printable PDF
Who this is for
This resource is for school-based OTs, special education teachers, school counselors, and elementary and middle school classroom teachers. It fits when you keep hearing “she could do it if she just tried” and need a better conversation to bring to the team. It’s especially useful when reminders, rewards, and consequences haven’t worked and the student is still stuck at the start of the task.
How to use it
Choose one specific task where you see the struggle, like the morning math page or the paragraph that never gets started. Use the planner to write down what you actually observe. Then pick one or two NICE AMP conditions from the strategy bank and add the executive function scaffold the student needs to follow through. Try the change during the real task and watch whether starting, participation, or completion improves.
When the student is ready, the student sheets let them name what would make the task easier. That turns the plan into something the student helps own instead of something done to them.
This is not a behavior chart or a reward system. It’s a way to change the task conditions so a student with ADHD has a reason to start and the support to keep going.
Pairs well with
- Task Initiation Strategy Intervention Complete Guide: for the student who is engaged but still can’t get started
- The STRAT Deck: a strengths-based system for finding, testing, and collecting the strategies that work for one student
- EASE: The Full Scope of Evidence-Based Support for Learners with ADHD: the full course for supporting students with ADHD across accommodations, scaffolds, and self-understanding
Licensing
This purchase is a single-user license for one educator or therapist to use with their own students. Building and district licenses are available at a discount, and schools can purchase by purchase order. Email lflynn@ot4adhd.com for a quote.
NICE AMP is a planning tool for school teams. It is not a standardized assessment or diagnostic tool and does not replace professional evaluation or a student’s IEP or 504 plan.
Students with ADHD don’t need more pressure to participate. They need work built with support for engagement and supports to keep going.
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