AD/HD Fact Sheet

• AD/HD is not just bad behavior. There is a chemical imbalance in the brain and/or other processing issues that impede those who have it from performing as well as peers who do not have AD/HD.
• Children with AD/HD aren’t always hyperactive.
• Children with AD/HD lack the ability to organize thoughts, which may look like rambling or trouble answering questions without pauses.
• Children with AD/HD sometimes hyper-focus on things around them, which may look like defiance by not listening to instruction or not paying attention.
• Children with AD/HD have most likely had difficulties with teachers or other persons of authority who may not have understood their challenges; thus, they can be sensitive and insecure.
• Children with AD/HD sometimes need direct instruction and lots of one-on-one attention. This may necessitate their being seated front and center.
• It can be helpful to allow children with AD/HD to move around a lot because it increases blood flow to the brain, which helps them focus.
• Children with AD/HD, overall, have poor executive functioning (i.e., brain functions that activate, organize, integrate, and manage other functions). Executive functions enable individuals to account for short and long term consequences of their actions and to plan for those results, allow individuals to make real time evaluations of their actions, and to make necessary adjustments if those actions are not achieving the desired result. Children with AD/HD often struggle in all of these areas.
• Children with AD/HD live in the here and now. It is very difficult for them to weigh options according to what will happen to them tomorrow or twenty years down the road.
• Children with AD/HD have different strengths and weaknesses.
• Children with AD/HD are often picked on because other children do not understand their challenges. It is important to try and not single out children with AD/HD as being different.