| How can we help pupils who find it difficult to concentrate, stay on-task? |
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Research taster
Pupils with Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often present challenging behaviour because they:
Something as simple as hand gestures, either used alone or together with speech, can be a powerful means of engaging ADHD children and children with other special needs
 . For example, you might point to the corner of a puzzle piece to give a pupil a clue, but not say anything. Or you might say, “try replacing the triangle with the circle and see what happens” whilst pointing to the triangular piece with one hand and drawing an imaginary circle with the other hand.
Your evidence
You might like to ask a colleague to observe you working with a pupil with ADHD perhaps, or even one who finds it hard to concentrate and note down examples of when you used hand gestures to support the child’s learning and also chances that you missed. Your colleague could also note down the responses the child made and whether the response showed that s/he was listening, focusing, and understanding the activity. For example, did the child look at you or look around, answer your questions, ask questions of his/her own, and attempt the activity? You could discuss how the session went with your colleague. Moving forward You might like to consciously try to increase the extent to which you make use of hand gestures both with and without speech with the child over several teaching sessions and monitor the effects that they have on his/her concentration. You might also want to watch the child’s responses more carefully to help you make your judgement. Find out more  Wang, X., Bernas, R., & Eberhard, P. (2004) Engaging ADHD students in tasks with hand gestures: a pedagogical possibility for teachers. Summary available at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/inclusion/adhd/You can find out about supporting pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties on the EPPI-Centre website at: http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=124 You can find summaries of research on the theme of behaviour on The Research Informed Practice Site at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/behaviour/?digest=all The GTC’s Research of the Month summary ‘Effective strategies for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties’. Available at: http://www.gtce.org.uk/research/romtopics/rom_inclusion/ROMprimaryEBD/ The Behaviour 4 Learning website at http://www.behaviour4learning.ac.uk/ You can find further reading suggestions on the theme of behaviour at: http://www.rtweb.info/ch11/nfr11.html |
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