The Truth about adhd & attention in school

Psychology Scientists are working hard at attaining a deeper, more accurate understanding of human neurodiversity, especially ADHD. While many people hear about ADHD it turns out that much misinformation, often stemming from an ableist perspective, circulates. For example, you may have heard that students with ADHD cannot focus on lectures in school, or that they can't be expected to sit still. These ideas reflect a shallow, ableist description, not actual facts. Individuals with ADHD do experience school differently because the flow patterns of energy in their brains are indeed different. However, students with ADHD can focus, and can engage, just so long as they are understood and appropriately supported. Indeed, the brain flow patterns that make it challenging for folks with ADHD to switch from task to task enhances their creativity! When we put our energies towards understandings individuals rather than comparing them, we start to gain a richer, more accurate story about their capabilities.

Exhibit A

We conducted a survey with over 40 participants, 95% of these participants claimed to be knowledgeable in ADHD. Still, over 62% responded that individuals with ADHD cannot focus for extended periods of time.

The truth behind this myth is that it is an overgeneralization of neurodiversity. This a common occurrence we see in society due to psychology's disconnect from the public.

ADHD brings a challenge of task-switching rather than attention. Individuals with ADHD experience hyper-focusing which in some cases can improve performance on specific tasks of interest. The challenge of ADHD is regulating their experiences of hyper-focusing to receive the benefits.

Exhibit B

69.7% of 33 straw poll participants believed this myth

What's the truth?

Neurotypical people can filter stimuli to determine where to place focus
Neurodiverse people find it difficult to filter stimuli, thus they find that there is MORE to focus on

Exhibit C

When we took a poll asking whether people thought ADHD was just not being able to focus or if it is just not being able to sit still. Out of 63 responses, 49 of them said that ADHD is the answer of not being able to focus.
Growing up, parents have told their children that ADHD is abnormal, but in reality it just means that someone has a different way of managing their attention resources. In fact, people with ADHD can get into a "hyper focus" mode, meaning that they will focus on one thing and one thing only, and may loose track of time doing so because they will focus on this one thing so hard that they have no idea what is going on around them.
It is only difficult for people with ADHD to focus when they find something uninteresting to them. However, when they like to do something or learn about something then they will put all their attention to that one thing. This can be both a good and bad thing, depending on if they hyper focus on a lecture in school, or if they hyper focus on a video game and do not end up going to bed until 3 am on a school night.
People with ADHD need support and practice when it comes to getting their head into the game at school. It's like anything else we do in life, we practice to get better, but no one will ever be perfect.

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