If my classes are any indication, there is an ADHD epidemic.Of my 36 students (3 classes), 9 have told me they've been diagnosed ADHD. That results in a dizzying array of special considerations I have to give them.
Those with the official notes from our student advisors get 2 hours to take 1 hour tests, get to write even the most inconsequential in-class assignment on their own schedule in the computer lab, and should get copies of my notes for class to supplement their own - as if they're taking any anyway.
But all of them also give me the ADHD line about where they can sit in class, how often they can get up and leave, whether they'll stay the whole period or not, and on, and on.
Were I a better man, I'd get into some formal training on ADHD so I could help my students better. But the thing is, their symptoms seem to worsen as assignments come up, and lessen dramatically when assignments are over.
Here's a common list of ADHD symptoms I've found a number of places on the web.
For the inattentive type, at least 6 of the following symptoms must have continued to occur for at least 6 months:
- Careless mistakes/lack of attention to details
- Lack of sustained attention
- Poor listener
- Failure to follow through on tasks
- Poor organization
- Avoiding tasks requiring sustained mental effort
- Losing things
- Easily distracted
- Forgetful in daily activities
For the hyperactive/impulsive type, at least 6 of the following symptoms must have continued to occur for at least 6 months:
- Fidgeting/squirming
- Leaving seat
- Excessive running/climbing
- Difficulty with quiet activities
- "On the go"
- Excessive talking
- Blurting out answers
- Can't wait turn
- Intrusive
Good grief. That's nearly every student I've had in an undergrad class for the past 5 years. Maybe it is an epidemic after all.
Can anyone mandate that you give your notes to students? I'd either refuse or give them something indecipherable.
ReplyDeleteOr only work from the notes in your head that you developed over years of subject mastery. I've known instructors to use that line before. They were serious, too; they went to class empty-handed, but full-headed.
DeleteWow, the last three items in the gray box remind me of my eval at Lead Poisoning CC.
Delete"Your students use too many in and out priveledges, and they talk too much and can't sit still. This is obviously because of the instructor's in-ability to manage his classroom..."
EMH: yes, it's always the professors' fault that students aren't engaging or entertaining enough to keep a class full of students with an attention span of a two-year-old interested in learning. Personal ownership of behavior dies a quick death.
DeleteAt my last job we had extended learning consultants (ELCs) who helped with this type of student.
ReplyDeleteAfter I'd given notes to one student all semester long, she began complaining to her ELC that I said some things in class not in my notes, and could I be directed to make additional notes after every class and send them to her.
Write "Did you listen closely?" on top of the notes for the next class.
DeleteI dunno if the student would be happy, but you would.
At a previous college it was a well known fact that a particular general practitioner would diagnose anyone with ADD. All they had to do was go in armed with the internet's list of symptoms and say "Yes" to a few of them while they swung their legs off the side of the examination table.
ReplyDeleteParents were especially keen on this physician because, if little Snowie was having problems in school, a diagnosis would get little Snowie out of doing some assignments and tests.
I'm not dismissing all ADD or ADHD cases out of hand, but yeah, it doesn't take much to get one of those "Get Out of Work Free" cards.
Our Disability Support Office works pretty much that say: students self diagnose and the coordinator (a person with no training in disabilities, I might add) signs off on their paperwork.
DeleteI'm surprised they get away with that crap. Ours has an extensive documentation policy which includes medical history and certification by a physician. That wouldn't help much with Dr. Ritalin from Sawyer's old school, but at least it's something that keeps everyone from showing up with a disability.
DeleteI've found that most of my students with disability certifications don't abuse them. Sometimes they won't even have them sent to me until they reach a point where they know they need accommodations to make it on a specific assignment. But once in awhile I get a Super Special Snowflake who makes demands above and beyond what the certification requires or asks for. All it takes is one to make a class miserable.
My ADHD students MUST have laptops as part of their accommodation. Not surprisingly, they then have difficulty following the class because they now have different distractions.
ReplyDeleteI thought that ADHD had fallen out of favor as a diagnosis, though. All the kids who were diagnosed as bipolar during the late 90s and early 00s have been showing up in my class recently. They tell me that they can't be expected to participate in discussion, come to class regularly, or turn in assignments on time.
My ADHD students MUST have laptops as part of their accommodation. Not surprisingly, they then have difficulty following the class because they now have different distractions.
DeleteExactly. I follow class much better and work much better if I am NOT on the computer. I have issues with distraction ONLY when I am on the computer. Giving them laptops is like giving them a tall coke and hanging shiny objects all over the room.
The new thing is Executive Functioning Disorder, which even sounds classy. I think it means that the "sufferer" doesn't make good decisions. I'm serious.
ReplyDeleteWhen Mrs. Ruby taught high school in a very ritzy area, nearly every one of her students presented her with a long list of accommodations to which they were entitled because of some disorder. (It was common knowledge, apparently, that for something like $4000, you could get your kid tested top-to-bottom, and some disorder was sure to be identified.) This child needed time-and-a-half on exams, this one needed double-time on exams, this one needed untimed exams, this one couldn't be given exams. And, my favorite, more than half the class required "preferential seating." I think she lined up all the desks equidistant from herself in a semicircle to compensate for that one.
Like Sawyer, I'm not saying these disorders don't exist. But I do doubt that they exist in the abundance with which wealthy kids are able to claim them.
Yes, OMG, yes! Executive Function Disorder seems to pretty much mean "I can't figure out how to run my own life because my parents did everything for me, so let's call it a disorder now." I have several with this "diagnosis." The only one (out of 6) that I believe is a legit one is the Aspberger's guy who spends an hour doing a 5-point quiz and another hour doing a 100-point paper (he can't seem to differentiate the priorities).
DeleteYou know what I needed? Half time on exams, no help filling in my bubbles for my name on standardized tests, and freedom to read ahead when the teacher was reading out loud to us without getting in trouble.
DeleteCan I get that sort of accommodation?
Heck yes, freedom to read ahead (or read anything when you'd finished the copying-off-the-board or exercise way ahead of anyone else) would be a great accomodation!
DeleteNo, students should not be allowed to read ahead. It is intimidating and traumatic for the other students to experience that they are not absolutely super duper speshl. Students who read ahead or work ahead are ostentatiously antiegalitarian elitists who perpetrate a frontal assault on the self esteem of their fellows.
DeleteUnfortunately when I had my then 5 year old son tested years ago at Vanderbilt Autism Clinic, they told me he had such a "complicated profile" that all they could tell me for sure was that he had Executive Functioning Disorder. And then they couldn't really elaborate on what it was - they were just shooing me out the door. (Luckily I found a book about it.)
DeleteHonestly what he has is Asperger's, but they were looking for "classic" autism, and thus he didn't fit their scope for the particular research they were doing.
He's a bright main-streamed 3rd grader, and I don't ask for any accommodations. I expect him to try harder if he struggles, and to WORK while he's at school. Life's hard, and real life will be a nasty surprise if he can't make it work at school.
All that to say, yes executive functioning issues exist, but they are hardly an excuse for slacker whiners.
This, and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just granted licenses for the first new civilian nuclear power plants in the U.S.A. since the Three Mile Island accident, make me feel queasy.
ReplyDelete(When I attended U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School in 1980, they emphasized "attention to detail" very, very much.)
Wasn't there a case way back, where the workers had been told not to put too much uranium in one place, because once the stockpile gets to critical mass, it starts a reaction. So they put it in two adjacent containers (or adjacent rooms, I forget the details) that abutted each other. By the time it was noticed, the combined piles were a substantial proportion of critical mass.
Delete"But you said........"
One of the best things about nuclear power is that the mindset that goes with whining "...but you said..." can quickly result in slow, painful, nasty, horrible death for the whiner, as in the Tokaimura nuclear accident.
DeleteTerry, you should not be expected to become an expert in diagnosis. You rely on those with that training. You should rely only on those people and follow their directions but provide nothing more. Every other request for accommodations is more bullshit from needy students.
ReplyDeleteWe're fucked.
ReplyDeleteI volunteer to help with reading and math in my daughter's second grade class (the school just got Title I status this year). The class has one serious problem kid, and a couple more who have issues. The problem kid does *whatever the hell he wants* up to and including getting up from his seat while the teacher is talking and while other students are presenting. I don't know how my daughter can get anything done in this class. Mainstreaming, from what I can see, doesn't work. The kid doesn't need to be in a class with 17 other kids--he needs to be in a class with 3 or 4 other kids to learn how to control himself. (Too bad there isn't money for this, which is why we have "mainstreaming" as an idea.)I don't care if you have ADD or whatever the flavor of the moment is--you can learn to control yourself. We did it. Generations of kids did it, long before there was Ritalin and god knows what else.
I don't doubt that there are other contributing factors--but the fact remains that labeling these kids gives them an "easy" out--and while they're coddled in school (and god help us when they get into college), their bosses aren't going to coddle them. That's what I can't understand about current educational "policy". The rest of the world doesn't operate like this--why do we have to bend over backwards?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Employers can't blatantly violate anti-discrimination laws. But then, as sympathetic as I am to the blind (a blind student in my astronomy class wrote a paper on radio astronomy that was among the coolest I've ever seen and heard, since it included sound), aside from licensing, what prevents a blind person from being hired as an airline pilot?
DeleteFrod, as long as there is an extra seat for the pilot's "support," who will fly the plane for him or her, what's the problem? :o)
DeleteThe problem is that a blind person is not allowed to get a pilot's license. Also, one needs a pilot's license in order to fly a plane, much less be eligible to be employed as a pilot.
DeleteThere are vision requirements for a pilot's license, and although I'm not blind or legally blind, I'm pretty sure I couldn't pass them, unless I were allowed to use my glasses. Even this is not allowed for at least some types of piloting. U.S. Navy pilots who land on aircraft carriers are not allowed to wear glasses, because losing their glasses at a critical moment can be astonishingly dangerous.
Come to think of it, this is much the way it is with drivers licenses. I'm not allowed to drive legally without my glasses. There is a specific restriction about this printed on my drivers license.
Of course, the department of motor vehicles clearly states that a drivers license isn't a right, it's a privilege. So, one can use a privilege to restrict a right?
Mainstreaming was a big mistake. 95% of ADHD and all of the associated "disorders" are bullshit. Note I said "95%," not 0%.
ReplyDeleteI teach in a very economically depressed area and virtually none of my students claims to have ADHD. Very few of them have accommodations to begin with. And pretty much all of them are capable of sitting through a class without skipping around or throwing things out the window.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If I were a member of the small percentage of people who actually had ADHD, I would be so pissed off at all the slackers trying to get accommodated that my brain would explode.
Stella is 100% CORRECT. I'd agree that easily 95% of the ADD/ADHD cases are absolute HORSESHIT. It's just a trendy misdiagnosis that gives flakies and others in society a free pass on whatever they find unpleasant. FUCK THAT SHIT.
DeleteLike Stella, my God, I'm glad I'm at Middlin' Regional but Respectable (middle-to upper-lower class and pretty refreshingly un-entitled) State. Out of 110 students, I have 2 or 3 this term getting accommodations and by God, that handful owns their shit and do their part.
ReplyDeleteLikewise. I've never had a student with accommodations who wasn't pulling their weight. I'm wondering what shit God's going to send down the pike for me, to make up for this.
DeleteI have similar experience at a fairly similar institution (a bit more economically diverse). It may help that I teach writing to sophomores and junios, and assign almost no timed in-class work, but I'm not seeing a lot of requests for accommodations, and I *am* seeing a small proportion of students each semester who clearly have some sort of issue, but have figured out pretty good ways to cope -- not so good that I'm not noticing, but good enough that they should be genuinely employable in a field that fits their strengths (and they all have genuine strengths).
DeleteI once had to sit for 4 hours with a student who was granted double time on exams while said student took the final for my class.
ReplyDeleteStudent wrote for about an hour, then spent the next 3 staring at the exam.
At the end of the 4 hours, I had to go actually take the test away from student, who began to protest--"but I get double time on exams!"I point at the clock, stuffed the exam in my computer bag, and left.
Thank dog student passed and didn't have to retake the class (I teach the only section.)
I am an undergraduate student with accommodations for two of my three disabilities (Aspergers, Nonverbal Learning). It is students like those mentioned in the post that cause me utter embarrassment. Students who abuse their accommodations, and use each and every accommodation not because they actually need them, but because they can.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have read and heard, it does seem all too easy for students to get accommodations these days. When I started college, I met with our Disability Center, who had reviewed the documentation I provided, which included a list of suggested accommodations from one doctor. They asked me if there were any other unlisted accommodations, but didn't bother to ask if there were any I didn't foresee needing. I said no, so they basically just put what the one doctor had recommended, which consisted of about ten accommodations. Of those, I use about three.
Angry, your experience mirrors what I've observed: the students with REAL disabilities are not the ones making demands; they know how to function with their disabilities and work damned hard to keep up. It's the ones who IMAGINE that laziness should be accommodated and relabeled that piss us off the most.
DeleteI see the same. I've had students with disabilities ranging from Asperger's to ADD to cerebral palsy serious enough to cause some difficulty speaking, and, while their deficits were noticeable, so was the fact that they'd learned how to cope with them, and were very straightforward in communicating with me about how *they* (not I) would be coping. That's not a problem, and is an approach that should also work in many workplaces (whether behind a cash register, though, I'm not sure).
DeleteThe only reason I wasn't "diagnosed" ADHD as a kid is because my mother is an intelligent woman who didn't let me get away with crap. I easily have 7/9 things on the first list and 5/9 on the second. Here's what I did: DEALT WITH IT! Although, I'm becoming more convinced that at least half of all ADHD diagnoses are people who are kinesthetic learners who simply don't realize it. I NEED to have my hands busy or I can't focus, period, so I do sudokus in meetings where I don't need to take notes. I tell my students to doodle if they are inclined, because it's good for many of them. I underlined important things when reading tests, and I taught myself to slow down so I wouldn't miss things while reading (I no focus when reading). I only got accommodations when I had a physical disability.
ReplyDeleteI am at a midsize let-everyone-in community college, and I definitely have a lot of pieces of paper for accommodations. I already post my powerpoints, I don't care if I'm recorded, and I don't give quizzes in lab. A few students take their exams elsewhere, I don't monitor the extra time. If students want to get up and leave, they best not interrupt the class, but whatever, and I say that piece of paper or not. I will talk to anyone about ways to improve their learning, but I won't expect less of anyone just because they have a piece of paper. I could have had one too.
I have several snowflake friends who have accommodations for ADHD and truth be told I have no idea how they are ever going to be able to function in the real world. You know, the one where you don't get extra time to complete a task, with no alternative assignments, where there aren't accommodations out the wazoo... They use their diagnoses as a "it's not my fault I can't do ______" card and this includes the times when they are taking their medication. They also seem to always have excuses to not take the meds such as "but it keeps me awake".
ReplyDeleteI sit in class and I notice a lot of little things that happen around me: the kid three seats down just tapped his pen twice, the girl in the front row has shiny distracting earrings, people walking past the window, sneezes, twitches, and lord help me if someone is twirling a shiny pen. I have ADHD (well I prefer to call it ADOS: Attention Deficient Ohh Shiny) . I've never bothered with medication since my family was much like Girls are Geeks' mother, yet I not only have it worse than my friends do (their words not mine, though I will trust their judgement since they probably notice my ADD moments more than I ever will try as I might) I also do better that my friends in the classroom to an extent. It's about learning to deal with the challenges you have, gaining a sense of self control, and taking accountability for your actions (or lack thereof).
Darn it missed a word swap- *Deficit not deficient, though that works too.
DeleteAfter years of sitting around with a bipolar 2 diagnosis, I was just diagnosed with ADD yesterday. I didn't go in and ask for it (though I did ask about focusing problems related to my Lamictal), and all of my responses to my mental history at first were about the bipolar, anxiety, or depression, since I figured that's what he'd want to know about. I'm not sure if he saw ADD where there was none, or what, but I'll do anything I can to increase my concentration skills. If there are meds that can do that, why not?
DeleteOn the other hand, I would never ask for accommodation for any of my disorders. If I don't hand a paper in on time, that's my fault for not properly managing my depression and anxiety with my DBT and CBT skills- I don't often forget about assignments. If I have ADD, it's mild enough that I can sit through class- I've managed for 23 years without this being a problem, so I don't see why a diagnosis should make me think it is now. And why would I want extra time on tests, if I don't even want to spend the whole test period sitting for them?
That said, it's taken me 23 years to get this diagnosis, so obviously I'm not a severe case. I don't claim to speak for those that are.
oh, one more thing: I have ADHD as well, but the kind where my mind goes a mile a minute and off on tangents - which actually serves me well in reading and learning as long as I can move a bit (even if it's shaking my leg.) But I, like my son, had to deal with it and feared my mother's wrath if I ever acted out or got less than perfect marks.
ReplyDeleteThe double time on exams accommodation mystifies me - whenever I took exams in college, I was the first one done, AND I got the highest marks. When your brain is going super-speed, you should be finishing things faster, not slower. If you know the material, that is.
Although I don't believe I have ADD (definitely not ADHD; to the extent I'm distractable, it's mostly by my own thoughts), I was briefly distracted by the "36 students in 3 classes" thing -- how do you manage that? And where do I sign up? Then again, if I have to prepare separate assignments and approaches for 1/4 of them, maybe not. There's something to be said for the old state-uni assembly line.
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely have problems with the "give them my notes" thing. In comp classes, I speak mostly from/to assignments and handouts, which everybody gets a copy of anyway. In lit classes (and when we read published things in comp classes), my notes are in the margins, and/or on post-its of six different colors sticking out every which-way from the book, or, yes, in my head. I consider lit, like comp, a skills class -- it's not a matter of what you need to know, which lends itself to notes extracting the key points, but of what you're able to do, which can mostly be learned by doing. In lit classes, interpretation during class discussion is a form of doing, and I really don't know exactly where the discussion is going to go, nor do I have time to take notes while we're doing it. I have no objection to being taped, however, though I'd prefer to be told it's happening (on the other hand, with smart phones with recording capability all over the place, I never assume I'm *not* being taped).
You people seem rather intolerant. It is disheartening to hear this kind of talk coming from college professors! While I do think ADHD is over diagnosed, there are students who have a genuine neurobiological disorder. They need your understanding. Some students probably abuse the system, and I can understand your frustrations, but this is no reason to adopt such intolerant attitudes toward the disorder as such. You seem to be arguing from emotion which is often a dangerous thing to do. An objective look at the issue will reveal that science is against you. ADHD is a real and significant problem for many college students.
ReplyDelete