ADHD Kids Perform Better When Allowed to Move Around: Study
A study published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology March 10 found letting kids with ADHD move around may be helping them to focus on their work.
As it turns, in a group of boys aged 8-12 with ADHD, they were more successful on tasks requiring working memory when they were allowed to fidget, stand up, and be active in class. Even chewing gum (not a habit of which I am fond) can help to keep an ADHD mind stimulated.
Mark Rapport, of the University of Central Florida, says that kids “use movement to keep themselves alert. They have a hard time sitting still unless they’re in a highly stimulating environment where they don’t need to use much working memory.” When they get to do work that engages their interests and excites them, they can sit still and focus. When the task is more mundane, they use movement to get their minds engaged.
These results certainly made sense to me. I was always a pretty good student, but I can certainly confirm that throughout my academic and professional lives, my best and most creative ideas emerge when I am walking around. I’ve talked to many, many people with ADHD who have had similar experiences, or seen it in their kids — pencil twirlers, toe-tappers, chair bouncers.
As a new friend @goaskmom on Twitter said, “Thank God for the teachers who used to let my boys stand up and work.” She and her boys were very fortunate. Though there is lot greater understanding about making simple accommodations than in years past, the attitude that still prevails in most schools today is that kids should sit still, and be quiet.
As a former teacher (with ADHD), I know it can be distracting to have a lot of unnecessary movement in class when you’re trying to get things done. But if a child learns better when he’s moving, and the main objective of school is learning, the movement is anything but unnceccessary. When I let some of the more restless kids in my high school history classes move around more and adopt alternate seating arrangements, I generally found that the level of disruption in my classes went down. And in virtually every instance, the hyperactive kids’ classroom performance improved.
It’s always great to see science catch up with common sense. This study should be recommended reading for educators everywhere.
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One Comment on ADHD Kids Perform Better When Allowed to Move Around: Study
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Get on the Ball! : Carpe Ignis on
Mon, 23rd Mar 2009 10:13 pm
[...] physical hyperactivity, even the most forgiving chair can feel confining. And as I wrote in a recent post, being able to move back and forth on a chair can have a calming effect on people with ADHD that [...]
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