0HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN WITH ADHD (ATTENTION DEFICIT
HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER)
Umida Begaliyevna Kurbonova
Chirchik State Pedagogical University, The 3rd year student of English Language and Literature
E-mail addresses: relashley1435@gmail.com Scientific supervisor: Dilafruz Razzakberdiyevna Umarova
ABSTRACT
Learning Differences (Disabilities) have become a popular topic among psychologists and educators in recent decades. The reasoning for this reflects the known learning problems that many pupils confront. This discussion focuses on the need to ensure that every student, regardless of unique learning styles and skills, has a successful and manageable educational experience. An enormous amount of effort has been put into effectively exploring a little-known area in order to better define learning differences like dyslexia, known as a reading disability, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), dysphasia, which is a speech and language disorder, dyscal-culia, which is a math disability, and many more. This study focuses on improving the ESL teaching process and making foreign language acquisition successful and possible for all students. This research investigates the method of teaching English to kids who struggle with language acquisition because of their attention deficit and hy-peractivity disorder issues.
Keywords: disorder, ADHD, methods, EFL, learning styles, hyperactive, speech and listening impairments, interactive, communicative.
INTRODUCTION.
One of the most often identified and studied disorder among children globally is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Kids' experiences in the public school system, whether positive or negative, will impact their academic trajectory, the amount of time they spend managing the classroom, and the school counselors and other supporting staff members' concerns.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines ADHD as a diagnosis made based on a recurring pattern of three main symptoms: hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention. Six or more of the nine symptoms of inattention, which include losing items, becoming easily distracted, forgetting things frequently, and
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failing to pay attention to details or sustain attention throughout tasks or activities, are required for a diagnosis of inattention. ADHD-related behaviors include fidgeting with hands or feet and wriggling in the seat, having trouble staying seated, blurting, not following instructions, being disorganized, jumping from one activity to another, not finishing a task, not paying attention to details, misplacing necessities, having trouble listening without being distracted or interrupted, and having trouble delaying gratification (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). When placed under rigorous supervision or given lots of reinforcement, a youngster with ADHD may be able to concentrate. Concentration is also frequently exhibited in unfamiliar settings or during one-on-one communication. While some of these behaviors may occasionally be seen in other kids, children with ADHD experience more frequent and severe symptoms than other kids their age.
Similarly, co-occurring psychiatric illnesses are far more common in children with ADHD. Anxiety or mood disorders ranged from 13 to 51 percent across studies, according to Burt, Krueger, McGue, & Iacono (2001). Thus, how teachers handle those issues of their students has a significant impact on the learning and behavioral development of children with ADHD in the classroom.
METHODOLOGY.
For students with ADHD, learning a second language typically presents challenges. According to Cantwell, over 50% of them suffer from various language and speech impairments brought on by problems with the central nervous system. Swan-son acknowledged that an impairment or underdevelopment of the front lobe of the brain, which controls the majority of language processes, is the fundamental cause of the ADHD problem. According to some research, which is by Witton in 1998, a working memory deficiency in children with ADHD can impact their language skills.
Three strategies are employed by teachers who are successful in teaching students with ADHD. They start by determining the child's particular needs. For instance, the teacher ascertains the why, how, and when the youngster exhibits impul-sivity, hyperactivity, and inattention. Next, based on the requirements of the child, the teacher chooses several instructional strategies related to academic instruction, behavioral interventions, and classroom accommodations. Lastly, the instructor blends these practices with the learning activities offered to the other students in the class to create an individualized educational program (IEP) or other customized plan. In conclusion, the three-pronged approach is as follows:
Analyze the child's unique requirements and assets. Examine the special learning requirements and assets of a student wit with ADHD in the class. Use offi-
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cial diagnostic tests and unofficial classroom observations to take into account the child's academic and behavioral needs while collaborating with a multidisciplinary team and the child's parents. Learning style inventories are one type of assessment that can be used to identify a child's strengths and help teachers improve on those skills. In the assessment, it is important to take into account the environments and situations in which difficult behaviors take place.
Decide on suitable teaching strategies. Choose the teaching strategies that will best address the child's indicated behavioral and academic needs. Choose activities that capture the child's interest, are age-appropriate, and correspond with the subject matter.
Include acceptable procedures in an IEP for kids getting special education assistance. An IEP should be developed in collaboration with parents and other educators. It should include annual goals, special education-related services, and any additional aids and services required to meet those goals. Consider how to combine the educational activities chosen for the ADHD child with those given to the other students in your class.
Since every child with ADHD is unique, it's critical to remember that no one educational approach, practice, or environment will work best for every child. Children with ADHD absorb a lot of information in the classroom; they see a lot of static and dynamic objects, colors, symbols, and characters, and they hear a lot of various sounds. Furthermore, because their sensory receptors are always active, kids could touch or fidget with anything that comes into their hands and grabs their interest. Their minds become disorganized when they take in too much information, not because they see or hear things more than other students do, but rather because they are unable to filter out the unimportant information from the irrelevant. Their inability to concentrate on the sounds long enough to identify them appears to be affecting their Language Acquisition Device (LAD), a term proposed by Naom Chomsky (2000) indicating that its principal job is to distill language sounds from non-linguistic ones.
Mapou (2009) asserts that listening comprehension issues are caused by "a weak span for auditory-verbal information" in people with ADHD. A youngster with ADHD may first pay attention to what is being said, but after a short while, it seems as though they are drawn to something else that piques their interest more. Even when a youngster with ADHD pays attention to the teacher's words, he may frequently only be able to pick up on one or two minor details that capture his attention, regardless of how significant they are to the overall lesson. He then begins to concentrate on the one smaller fraction of the material that is taught without understanding or applying the topic's essential concepts, which inevitably leads to an inadequate re-
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sult. An ADHD child will, nevertheless, be more likely to understand the important language information to be taught if the input is improved, for instance, if the key vocabulary or grammar phenomena are presented in an engaging way and are reinforced multiple times. Instead of using the same linguistic material over and over again, multiple sources should be used for even higher input augmentation. The development of sophisticated human abilities, including language, is clearly a multisensory process requiring the cooperation of all senses, as Stockman notes (2009). An ADHD learner is therefore more likely to gain from the lecture if there are more connections and attention-grabbing stimuli offered. When learning a new word, for example, a child should hear the word, see its spelling and the picture that represents its meaning, see and touch the object that this word denotes (if possible), and receive several examples to help them understand its function in a sentence and, ideally, in a real-world setting.
Michael Kuczala and Traci Lengel offer some broad suggestions for delivering efficient voice input in instruction in their book "The Kinesthetic Classroom: Teaching and learning Through Movement" (2010, p. 18). These recommendations, in my opinion, can also be successfully used to support language learning:
- Identify a pattern
- Establish links
- Cultivate a personal interest
- Relate it to past knowledge
- Become emotionally involved
- Practice it
With ADHD children in attendance, it is crucial how an ESL teacher instructs the class. Instructions must to be clear, concise, and specific. The teacher must have all of the students' attention before delivering them. Giving written instructions in addition to auditory instructions is beneficial, as long as you remember to offer one instruction at a time. You should gently reiterate the directions to the child if he still refuses to work. Even after that, a teacher might need to ask the student to repeat the directions and confirm that they have been fully understood. Children with ADHD may frequently misunderstand or disregard instructions since they were just not paying careful attention to them.
It also should be remembered that reading comprehension is particularly difficult for these learners when it comes to the English language. Reading in this language is not simple. In spoken speech, there are 44 distinct sounds in English that are represented by the 26 letters. Depending on their surroundings—neighboring letters and sounds—and their placement within a word, the same letters can be read in dif-
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ferent ways. Not to mention the fact that there are many exceptions to a large number of reading norms. Even though the disorder causes a lot of challenges, many traits that children with ADHD have—like being impulsive, energetic, stimulating, creative, and "the life of the party"—can be seen as benefits because they aren't always present in children without the disorder. As a result, an ESL teacher can make use of these qualities to their advantage while designing classes, which will improve student engagement and effectiveness.
For example, an ADHD student might exhibit surprisingly focused attention, be productive, and be a very successful learner when engaged in highly engaging interactive activities that require creativity, a lot of movement, and involvement. In addition to succeeding in the solo task, the student gains confidence, receives recognition from his classmates, and motivates everyone with his vivacity and excitement. One can experience a range of feelings, including enthusiasm and even anger when listening to a child with ADHD talk because they are unable to fully communicate their views. Such individuals are frequently difficult to interrupt, but they also have a tendency to jump in and start answering questions before the other person has finished. Additionally, a compensation mechanism is evident in action, as there are numerous gestures, movements, and sounds used to make up for the lack of vocabulary and explain the thoughts being represented. Young children with ADHD frequently speak in an illegible manner and make numerous mistakes in their speech, which is made worse by their inability to stop speaking as quickly as their classmates without ADHD can and correct themselves, according to Renz, 2003.
DISCUSSION AND RESULTS
These symptoms (or traits) worsen when studying a second language since a foreign language's vocabulary and grammar skills are typically far less extensive than that of the native tongue. Additionally, rational mental organization and coherent speech are challenging for ADHD children, particularly when asked to explain or describe anything in detail (answers requiring the use of sophisticated language or more than one or two phrases). Students with ADHD frequently talk louder than the other kids and don't know how to adjust the volume of their voice.
One of the main language acquisition problems is writing, thus for students with ADHD, this is probably one of their largest learning obstacles. Many of them end up writing in the same way that they read or hear as a result of the impacted input, which is to say, in the same way that they interpret and process written and spoken words. while writing, they do the same errors as while reading: they misspell words and letters, or they jot down what they hear without understanding or applying proper syntax and spelling. This frequently leads to the omission of significant por-
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tions of text.
These examples show that the four language skills frequently provide different difficulties for these kinds of students. Whatever the problem, for the SLA process to be successful, ESL and EFL students in elementary and secondary schools typically need to concentrate on all of them.
According to Philippa Greathead's essay on "Language Disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," one of the main learning issues that children with ADHD face is their ignorance of their own learning preferences. Since they don't create their own learning techniques, it is the teacher's responsibility to identify the kids' strengths and establish which learning styles work best together to support their academic progress.
While the TPR technique generally enhances the enjoyment and satisfaction of language learning, it is crucial to avoid overusing it in one's teaching practice. ADHD kids are drawn to novelty easily, but they can also grow bored swiftly if the same activities are done over and over again. Research has shown that the TPR approach, when combined with a variety of other language teaching strategies, is quite effective in helping ADHD students make progress. It can also be used as a warm-up or a transitional activity during a lesson.
Galeb Gattegno developed the Silent Way approach in the early 1970s as an educational paradigm predicated on the cognitive aspects of learning. He views language as "a substitute for experience" (Gattegno, 1972, p. 8) and notes that a person learning a second language "cannot learn another language in the same way because of what he now knows." A significant portion of his work is devoted to the issues surrounding language acquisition (Gattegno, 1972, p. 11).
The Silent Way approach helps kids develop the critical abilities of self-awareness and self-correction, which are lacking in the majority of ADHD students. Even if they know how to finish the task correctly, they find it difficult to assess their output in daily situations. Rather than applying this knowledge as frequently as other students might, they frequently behave quickly and impulsively. SW uses solely physical objects, such as rods, colorful charts, and hands (fingers), to make self-correction visible and palpable, making it easier and more manageable for ADHD learners. It is not necessary for a SW teacher to point out students' grammatical or pronunciation mistakes. Instead, he or she could indicate a specific color on the Sound Chart or point to a rod that represents a word, sound, or morpheme and poses the issue in the utterance, urging students to fix the errors on their own. A teacher may decide to enlist the assistance of other students in order to help the student repeat the correct version as a follow-up if the student is still unsure or unable to identify the
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problem. All children in the classroom benefit from this since it helps to enhance the attention, cooperation, and awareness of learners, and it is especially important for those with ADHD.
One aspect of the Communicative Approach to language learning that is thought to be a logical outgrowth of it is Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). This method's central tenet is based on the idea that deliberate engagement in non-linguistic activities (or tasks) can lead to the learning of a foreign language. Learning a language is a byproduct of engaging in meaningful, authentic communication. The primary tools of this approach are tasks (Richards, 2001), which move the emphasis of language acquisition from the structure of the language to its actual application. This methodology's "learning by doing" or experiential learning keeps pupils interested in working toward a specific objective. When they do tasks that initially appear unrelated to the language learning objective, they acquire the target language in a derivative manner.
ADHD students typically like video games even more than their peers, especially those that require them to move around a lot. It allows individuals to let go of their excess energy, take a vacation from their study schedule, and even maintain their attention on their learning objective for a lot longer. Playing games also helps them become more interactive, which promotes teamwork and communication. Due to their natural ability to focus on visually appealing content, the majority of ADHD kids are also excellent visual learners. This is why teaching English to students with ADHD can benefit greatly from the use of various visual aids, such as posters, flashcards, mind maps, films, objects, and photographs.
- Vocabulary activities:
Action Verbs - based on the TPR method.
"Simon Says" - Vocabulary Review (based on the TPR method)
"Chase The Fly Away!" (Vocabulary Review)-based on the TPR method.
- Grammar activities:
"Family members" (grammar and vocabulary activity) - based on The Silent Way Method.
Getting Words Together (A Task-Based Activity) Rod Battleship. Prepositions Review. (Based on the TBI).
- Discourse Activities: Colors - based on TBI.
Family Members and Colors (review), (a Task-Based activity). Getting to Know One Another
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CONCLUSION.
The instructional methods described in this guide have been shown to be effective in teaching youngsters with ADHD. That being said, it should be highlighted once more how beneficial these methods are for all kids. A successful approach to teaching children with ADHD consists of three key elements: classroom adjustments, behavioral treatments, and academic education. Teachers can help children with ADHD behave better and perform better academically by using strategies from these three areas into their regular classroom management and instruction procedures. Teachers will improve the learning environment for all children by doing this.
When teaching students with learning difficulties, there is no need for us teachers in the field of TESOL to feel helpless or irritated. Actually, we truly achieve our teaching objective and ensure that every student has a successful and pleasurable learning experience by concentrating on the needs of these learners. The idea that teaching is hampered or hindered in any way by the presence of ADHD and other pupils whose learning styles necessitate the adoption of unconventional approaches and strategies should be rejected. To empower those to unleash their innate powers and make positive, fulfilling changes in our environment, we need go deeper, utilize them as a wellspring of inspiration, creativity, and imagination.
REFERENCES:
1.American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
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3.Gable, R. A., Sugai, G. M., Lewis, T. J., Nelson, J. R., Cheney, D., Safran, S. P., & Safran, J. S. (1997). Individual and systemic approaches to collaboration and consultation. Reston, VA: Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders.
4.Darren A. Moorea. School-based interventions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A systematic review with multiple synthesis methods.- Review of Education. Vol. 6, No. 3, October 2018, pp. 209-263.
5.Forness, S. R., & Kavale, K. A. (2001). ADHD and a return to the medical model of special education. Education and Treatment of Children.
6.Gattegno, G. (1972). Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way.
7.Gemma Louise Hemming. Understanding the experiences of students and teachers of students whom are diagnosed with ADHD: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the ADHD label in schools. -The University of Birmingham. Vol. 1. March 2017.
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8.Greathead, P. Language Disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Retrieved from http://www.addiss.co.uk/languagedisorders.htm.
9.Kelly Henderson. Teaching-Children-with-ADHD-Instructional-Strategies-Practices. - Education Publications Center, U.S. Department of Education, 2006.
10.Mapou, R. L. Adult Learning Disabilities and ADHD: Research-informed Assessment. 2009.
11. Michiru Tamura. Teachers' Behavioral Interventions for Children with ADHD in Regular Classrooms. - University of Oslo, 2018.
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