We Now See More ADHD Because of Standardized Curriculum

Parents must work with the schools to provide more diversity in their curriculum and their teaching methods.

Image by AkshayaPatra Foundation from Pixabay

“Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art, it is the part the schools cannot recognize. ”
— Pauline Kael

A few years ago I heard a fellow who was ridiculing the idea that there may be such a thing as ADHD point out that “there is no ADHD in front of a video game.” He went on to conclude that “if ADHD goes away in one environment, like the video arcade, but appears in another environment, like the school, then where is the real problem? Is it in the person or the environment?”

While this argument was meant to imply that there’s no such thing as ADHD, it suffers from a basic flaw in logic. Virtually all children can be transfixed by a video game, yet only a minority (albeit a substantial and growing one) are unable to succeed in school because of attentional problems.

This implies some sort of fragility in their attentional structure or ability to learn that simply doesn’t show up in front of a video game, but becomes apparent in the classroom; it doesn’t indicate that there’s no such thing as ADHD.

A fascinating but largely overlooked study was published a few decades ago that measured how far a child with ADHD could be pushed— with and without medication— to do unfamiliar schoolwork. They found that if the amount of unfamiliar material a child was asked to learn or read exceeded the 15% to 30% range, then ADHD children experienced a breakdown in their ability to complete tasks, to stay on-task, and to comprehend the material.

When they were given stimulant medication, however, their ability to stay on-task dramatically improved and there was a slight improvement in their task comprehension — but their ability to complete tasks actually dropped.

The startling part, however, came when they changed the difficulty of the schoolwork. Shifting the percentage of new material to the 3% to 7% range, suddenly all the ADHD children’s ADHD school problems vanished — both when they were medicated and when they were not.

Non-ADHD children were equally able to handle the 30% new material and the 7% new material, but ADHD kids needed medication to make the transition into the more difficult classroom. On the other hand, when the ADHD children were allowed to move ahead at their own pace, keeping a daily 3% to 7% new material learned rate, they did as well as, and in some cases better than, their “normal” peers.

ADHD kids apparently have a more fragile learning style. They can handle learning as well as anybody, but only so long as their frustration level isn’t exceeded.

This means that in a classroom where instruction is individualized and/or the children are able to determine their own pace, ADHD children didn’t have a problem: they are able to perform as well as other children. Experience with alternative schools where children set their own pace, home schooling, and one-room schoolhouses where the wide variety of grade levels require each student to move at their own pace, all bear this out: ADHD isn’t a significant problem in these environments.

When ADHD children are confronted with high frustration levels, however, either from too much or too little new material, then ADHD manifests. Because our schools now have an increasing emphasis on standardization of curriculum and scores (with teachers measured on their ability to keep children within these “norms”), it’s not surprising that we see so much ADHD suddenly popping up.

The underfunded, too-large classroom environment is unintentionally designed to bring it out: Johnny’s way ahead of his class, and therefore bored/frustrated in English, while he’s overwhelmed/frustrated in Algebra. In neither case can he control the level of challenge or speed, or amount of information that’s being thrown at him. In both cases he will crash and burn.

This study also points out that while the medication helps children with staying on-task, it’s not doing much at all for their comprehension. But since class-work and homework require staying on-task behavior, and are the primary measurements of grades, medication seems to have a significant and positive effect on a child’s ability to perform in school. It’s important to note, though, that when the medication was withdrawn and the frustration level was brought down from 30% to 7%, these ADHD children performed more than twice as well, medicated or not, in the area of comprehension.

In other words, management and customization of curriculum to keep daily frustration levels above 3% and below 7% has more than twice the positive effect on an ADHD child’s ability to learn than does their taking medication.

It’s unlikely, however, that this customization of curriculum is going to happen anytime soon in our schools. In order to process the largest number of students through the system with the greatest efficiency at the lowest cost, every one must be plugged into a standardized slot, regardless of his or her particular level of comprehension or ability. And this, of course, is a prescription for disaster for ADHD children.

While I know of no similar studies done on adults, it’s probably reasonable to conclude that an adult with ADHD would not have a problem if their job and life situation offered a reasonable but not excessive amount of challenge and stimulation. On the other hand, if they were confronted with continual boredom, or with challenges which overwhelmed them, they’d probably begin to fail in the ways that are classically described in the literature.

Parents must work with the schools to provide more diversity in their curriculum and their teaching methods.

When that’s not available, political action from the local to the national level may be useful. In addition, tutoring, home-schooling, or placing children in a private school have all proved to be viable alternatives to allowing kids to fail in our under-funded and today under-attack public schools.