Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
When a test trips a child on something it was never meant to measure, change how they answer rather than what is asked. A spelling test spoken aloud is still a spelling test.
One girl saw letters as solid three dimensional shapes that would not sit together on a page, so writing them was a perceptual problem rather than a spelling one. Oral spelling tests went into her school plan and her actual knowledge became visible. The question to apply is simple: is this obstacle part of the skill being assessed, or in the way of it?
Qur’an and Sunnah
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear (Quran 2:286). Lifting a burden the task never needed is not the same as lowering the bar.
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
There is a useful parallel in a meta-analysis of cognitive training for ADHD, where improvements in core symptoms largely disappeared once the people doing the rating did not know who had been trained. The measure had been picking up something other than the skill. That work was about trials rather than classrooms, but the principle carries over.
Cortese S, Ferrin M, Brandeis D, Buitelaar J, Daley D, Dittmann RW, Holtmann M, Santosh P, Stevenson J, Stringaris A, Zuddas A, Sonuga-Barke EJ, European ADHD Guidelines Group (EAGG). (2015). Cognitive training for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: meta-analysis of clinical and neuropsychological outcomes from randomized controlled trials.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A score only means something if the difficulty inside it belongs to the thing you are trying to measure.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A weighted vest seems to do its work in roughly the first quarter of an hour. Twenty minutes did not beat fifteen, so longer is not more help.
Kava, valerian, St John's wort, ginkgo, ginseng and the proprietary blends have not shown benefit for ADHD in trials that matched the amount in every capsule and kept both the person handing them out and the person rating behaviour unaware of who got what.
Sensory processing difficulties are real and worth accommodating, and they are not a standalone diagnosis. The proposal for one was turned down for lack of evidence that it stands apart from the conditions it appears with.