This is a subject that weighs heavily on me. If you have read previous articles of mine, you will know that I have concerns around the strengths of children who are neurodivergent being missed within the early years of education. The system is not set up to support children who have neuro-differences which sadly means not only are these children not receiving an equal opportunity to learn but also missing out on developing their skill set ready for the world of employment.
As this is based on our own child’s experience with this, I am going to use ADHD for the examples within this article, however, this would ring true for a lot of other neuro-types.
Since the dawn of time (probably a bit of an exaggeration), we have been conditioned to think that a child can only be listening or paying attention when they are sat down, still, making eye contact and being quiet. For children who are neurodivergent this can be impossible. Due to the neurological differences children with ADHD have, particularly around seeking stimulation, the freedom to move can have an incredibly positive impact on their ability to concentrate. The movement serves as a tool to calm the brain and release enough dopamine to allow the child to keep their focus on the task, which is usually something they have absolutely no interest in and therefore results in little to no dopamine release. Not only are they more likely to stay engaged with a task, they are also more likely to remember what they are trying to learn because the movement has stimulated the brain enough to allow for better concentration, memory and understanding.
Associating learning with sounds is also a great way for children with ADHD to remember things. The sounds can aid concentration in what they are trying to learn because the information becomes associated with something novel. A song about the continents isn’t something you would come across in everyday life, so it instantly becomes more interesting to a child with ADHD because of the novelty factor. If the individual also has echolalia, then this can be committed to memory even easier as they will constantly repeat it out loud or in their heads while it still holds its novelty. As we have found out recently through lived experience of hearing it all day every day for the last 4 weeks!
This isn’t necessarily a new teaching method, but it usually only occurs as a whole class activity/learning opportunity every now and again. That’s absolutely fine for neurotypical children, but for those who are neurodivergent doing this more often, for more subjects, would enhance their experience at school and their performance in assessments. It also serves as an outlet for verbal stimulation in a constructive manner rather than the children with ADHD becoming overwhelmed with all of the information they are being given and needing to verbally stim to calm their brains. The learning songs could provide this for them.
Unfortunately, it has become apparent to us that the schools and some of the teachers are not willing to adapt to meet the needs of neurodivergent children. I do appreciate that there isn’t a lot of support out there for the teachers and a schools worth is almost purely based on exam results, but this does not excuse the fact that discrimination is rife within the system. Children who are neurodivergent are being labelled as naughty, defiant, stupid, over the top, difficult to manage and quite often their entire educational experience is being told they are not good enough and therefore creating a negative spiral ultimately ending in school refusal.
Our personal experience with reasonable adjustments in education really does highlight just how important these adjustments are.
At the start of the last school year our youngest was really struggling with concentration and being overstimulated from the learning environment. It became apparent to the school that he would need an ADHD assessment and by the January we had been referred and had some reasonable adjustments agreed. He is a child that cannot sit still and constantly needs mental stimulation. Being asked to sit at his table or on the carpet for prolonged periods would cause him to shut down. He needed to move and would often get told off for this when everyone else was able to sit still. He would shout things out, try to distract other kids and wouldn’t be able to answer any questions because his brain had disengaged and he had become dysregulated.
We were able to agree with his teacher the following reasonable adjustments:
- Movement breaks as and when needed
- Sensory breaks as and when needed (it quickly became apparent that him ‘needing’ the toilet was a sign he was overwhelmed)
- Sitting at the back of the carpet to allow for movement without distracting others
- Sitting at the back of the class where it was a little quieter
- Fidget toys in class, assemblies and at lunch time
At the start of the year, before these adjustments were put into place, he was really struggling. This started to show with his test results. You could literally see where he lost interest in the task and just stopped engaging. This meant we had multiple letters home telling us that his scores were below average and we needed to help him improve them. But when we did similar tasks at home, he got them right. We couldn’t work out why he was able to do this correctly in his home environment. We now know it was because he had autonomy at home. He is allowed to move and stim as much as he needs, we don’t even notice it all that much anymore as he has always done it. At school though, he was told off for this. He wasn’t allowed to move, he couldn’t stim, he couldn’t take a break. I did a bit of reading and found that a lot of children with ADHD are far more likely to be able to engage in meaningful learning if they have some autonomy on what they do with their body while engaging in the learning task. E.g. being allowed to move!
Towards the end of the year he was able to achieve the average results due to having his adjustments in place. We had less meltdowns at home and upset over attending school because he knew he would be able to cope better with the adjustments in place. There were still very clear points within assessments where he lost interest, but this was much further along than before.
Unfortunately, this year he has gone back and all reasonable adjustments removed/not carried over. I know we aren’t alone with this either. I have spoken with other parents of children with ADHD and Dyslexia in particular who are in the same boat this year. The Dyslexia ones really do baffle me. A gold overlay to help is surely a relatively easy adjustment to make?
One of the things we were told was ‘he does still have movement breaks, but we do this as a class’. It’s not truly a movement break in the sense of a reasonable adjustment then is it? It is a class activity. Which is likely quite over stimulating. It also doesn’t help with learning tasks as it’s been incorporated into the school day. The movement breaks are supposed to be there to allow autonomy on when/how they move to support their learning of tedious things they just have no interest in what so ever. If he is asked to solve a maths problem while sat down he just can’t engage, but allow him to sway, bounce, even spin and he will be able to complete the task.
Our youngest is not stupid. Yet he is often scored as below average for his academic testing. I don’t believe these tests are a true reflection of intelligence, it is a reflection of a childs tolerance to archaic systems and ways of working. One of the most frustrating terms heard around this not only in school but work places too is ‘we have always done it this way though and we didn’t have any issues before’. Are you sure? I am almost certain that there were children like our youngest that were labelled as naughty, outcasts from the ‘norm’, difficult and ended up being excluded from education when I was younger. But get those kids into college, or an apprenticeship in a subject they have a genuine interest in? They THRIVE! Especially if their needs are truly being met through reasonable adjustments.
Now he is 7, reading has become a bigger part of his education. We do think he is dyslexic also, but having to sit and read is a big fat NO. He will have meltdowns, he will become disruptive in school and generally finds it a task that makes him very anxious. However, at home we allow him to move, have a screen and come back and forth with the reading. It helps, but he still doesn’t enjoy it. Its not how he learns best. His preferred learning style is with audio-visual content and movement.
It wasn’t us that noticed this. He came to us and said he was struggling to understand the topic at school because it was all reading and writing. He asked if he could have a video of the great fire of London and the Titanic. He was able to recognise that although he couldn’t learn the facts in written form, he would be able to retain the information from a video. We were able to find some documentaries for him and I cannot tell you how much this helped him. He watched them over and over again and can tell anyone everything about those topics. Without having to read or write a word about them.
To be able to recognise this in yourself at any age is impressive, but at 7 years old? We were amazed. He has since asked for other documentaries (Horrible Histories is his current favourite) and he is honestly like a little sponge. He can recite most of them word for word.
The really unfortunate thing about this, is while we can support this style of learning at home, the school are unwilling/unable to do the same. He is still being forced to read and write about these topics which then causes issues with behaviour at school because his needs aren’t being met.
His strengths lie in story telling and fact collecting. By recognising his preferred way of learning he has been able to tell the stories of the great fire of London and the Titanic with excellent recall of the information and make it sound interesting to other children because he is so passionate about it.
This isn’t our first rodeo with our childs needs not being met. We have been through this before with our eldest, not ADHD but rather Autism. To the point where he would cause himself harm because the school were not meeting his needs. Unfortunately, his school refusal resulted in lasting trauma and eventually we had to remove him from the education system for a short while. This year he has started secondary school and he is thankfully having a far better experience. The autonomy in secondary is encouraged far more than in primary and he seems to be enjoying it so far.
My biggest concern is that although the difference in neuro-types are being recognised more, the systems are still not allowing for adjustments to be made to support these kids. If we are refusing to focus on why the children are struggling, the reason behind it, how can we ensure that they are getting an equal opportunity to their education? Equality and Equity are 2 different things, which is quite often forgotten. Equality is everyone being given the same tools when accessing their education despite whether these tools actually work for the individual. Equity is ensuring each individual has the specific tools they need to be able to get the most out of their education.
How can we set the kids up to be able to identify their own strengths when all they hear throughout their school years is negative? When they are blamed for something that is out of their control? Something needs to change within the system, right now we are failing so many children who have the potential to make a huge impact within society.
I would be willing to put money on it. If our education system had the knowledge, training and support in place to identify the strengths each child has, not only for those who are neurodivergent, to create a better learning experience for all of them we would have far less school refusal, better grades, happier children and it would give them that kick start to grow in confidence and really flourish throughout their adult lives.