“This Is What Happens When Teachers Finally Understand ADHD”

“I’m sorry, but your child just doesn’t care about doing well.”

This was the middle school teacher’s only response when I asked her for ideas and suggestions to help my child with ADHD, who was struggling to turn in assignments in this particular class. My child did care about doing well but was having a hard time figuring out how to follow the system. And right to my face, the system was showing me how unforgiving and unhelpful it could be.

Despite her unfavorable conclusion about my child, I explained to the teacher that my child has ADHD, that all children want to do well, and that I wanted to work collaboratively to help my child figure out and outsmart obstacles at school. I thought to myself that if more teachers understood ADHD challenges, these prickly encounters between teacher, student, and parent could significantly diminish.

Thanks, in part, to this encounter, I decided to enroll in a graduate program to become a school psychologist. I began my studies with a thesis topic already in mind: teaching teachers about ADHD.

I had a hunch that teachers’ experiences in the classroom could also improve with education about ADHD. So I designed a study that would examine teachers’ knowledge of ADHD, as well as their self-perception of their teaching abilities. The research, and the findings that preceded it, were eye-opening.

Student and Teacher Challenges in the Classroom When ADHD Is Present

This should come as no surprise to anyone: Studies have found that the school setting intensifies ADHD symptoms. This is, in part, due to behavior expectations in the classroom and challenges in relationships at school. Students describe school as a place that leaves them “frustrated, angry, drained, and/or imprisoned.”¹

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Similarly, teachers tend to have a hard time with ADHD behaviors. One study found that 63% of teachers reported stress when interacting with students exhibiting ADHD behaviors and 80% found it challenging to teach students with ADHD behaviors.²

But let’s not jump to blame the teachers. When I was designing my study in 2021, I looked at the top 10 general education teacher training programs in the United States and found no classes on ADHD. Within those programs, only a few classes focused more broadly on disability or special needs.³

While disheartening, this finding also increased my empathy toward teachers. In fairness, if teachers have not received any training on ADHD, how can they be expected to know what to do when inattention, hyperactivity, and executive functioning challenges come waltzing (or steamrolling) into the room?

Of course a teacher who has received no formal education about this population of students with unique needs is going to feel and act stressed.

[Read: Only 4 in 10 Educators Receive ADHD Training]

But there’s a glimmer of hope: In that same study and others, teachers reported that they wanted more information about ADHD, including how to manage students with ADHD.³

Even though I’m still annoyed at the teacher who said my child doesn’t care about doing well (yes, I can hold a grudge), it became clear to me that teachers aren’t the villains.

Teacher Self-Efficacy and ADHD

Armed with this knowledge, I set out to see how two groups of middle school teachers would be impacted if they participated in an ADHD workshop. Prior to the workshops, I asked teachers to take a survey measuring ADHD knowledge and teacher self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the teacher’s own belief that they can help even the most difficult students.⁴

Teachers were then asked to take the same survey within five days of finishing the ADHD workshop. The results of the surveys suggested that my hunch was correct. Not only did knowledge about ADHD improve, but the results found that teacher self-efficacy showed a small increase following the workshop as well. Simply put, teachers felt better about their ability to teach once they had participated in a workshop about ADHD.

Why is this important? Teachers’ perceived effectiveness is related to how they work toward the success of their students in their classrooms. Teacher self-efficacy determines whether a teacher will continue with a difficult situation and how long they will continue trying when they are confronted with obstacles.⁵ It’s true that ADHD behaviors can be challenging, so it makes sense that teacher self-efficacy would increase alongside understanding about and strategies for those behaviors.

Teachers’ Attitudes About Students With ADHD

Another exciting result from my study was that attitudes about students with ADHD improved after taking the workshop. Results from the pre- and post-intervention surveys indicated a statistically significant decrease in negative attitudes and increase in positive attitudes about ADHD after the workshop.

Prior to the workshop, teachers responded in the following ways to this prompt, “Children who have ADHD affect the teaching process in the following ways:”

“They can be disruptive and it can be hard to manage the disruptions.”
“Can make it hard to manage the class as a whole if they are being overly disruptive.”
“Can impact the pacing of the lesson and draw unnecessary attention to themselves.”
“By distracting other students’ learning.”

Following the workshop, some teachers still shared that students with ADHD are distracting, but they added a level of positivity and empathy that did not exist earlier:

“Can be distracting but also add to depth of learning.”
“Distract other students and can come up with great ideas and connections.”
“Cause distractions, sometimes add insight.”

Additionally, following the workshop, teachers noted that students with ADHD help teachers improve their teaching:

“Make the teacher more deliberate and better.”
“They encourage me to think on my feet and vary lessons in order to keep everyone interested and learning.”
“Provide greater detail and clarification which helps the whole class.”
“Expand possibilities for differentiated instruction, require targeting multiple senses, diversify the lessons we teach, the way we partition information.”
“Help teachers build character.”
“They make the classroom diverse and interesting because we do fun things to increase engagement.”

I found it heartwarming that teachers also noticed both the reality of ADHD challenges as well as the strengths of students with ADHD. For example, in response to the prompt “Children with ADHD are…”, respondents shared these comments after the workshop:

“Still trying their best to be successful.”
“Kids who may need more support at school but also have their own personality traits that are awesome.”
“Capable of learning and behaving appropriately with behavior modification and medication (if necessary).”
“Intelligent, fun, caring, and they truly want to do the right things.”
“Creative, resourceful, and whole, and benefit from supportive accountability.”

What do these findings mean for caregivers, teachers, and administrators? While there will always be prickly teachers like the one who set me on a new career path, most teachers want to understand kids with ADHD. And that’s thrilling to understand.

We can all make significant changes for students and teachers by sharing about ADHD. Here are some ideas.

Share this self-guided course about ADHD with your child’s teachers.
Parents can approach school conversations expecting that teachers are eager to learn about their child’s unique, ADHD-specific challenges and accompanying strengths. This can ease any tension beforehand.
Parents and teachers can ask the principal for in-service training about ADHD.
Parents can share this article with a principal and/or teacher.

ADHD Training for Teachers: Next Steps

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