​​​​​​​ADHD in tertiary education organisations

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Please note: while these resources are still freely available to explore, they are no longer hosted on an eLearning platform so progress saving and completion certificates are no longer available. We apologise for any inconvenience and are investigating avenues to reinstate this. Thank you for your patience! 

For more information, check out our eLearning FAQs for staff at tertiary organisations

If you’ve already identified (or suspect) that you have a learner with ADHD in your lesson then you’ve come to the right place. 

These learning modules cover:

1. Understanding learners with ADHD.

  • Find out what ADHD is and how it affects learners.
  • Read relevant research about tertiary learners with ADHD.
  • Hear from learners on how they believe ADHD affects them while undertaking tertiary study.

2. How to effectively engage learners with ADHD.

  • Find out how to get, and hold, the attention of learners with ADHD, as well as the rest of your learners, with these crowd-pleasing tips.

3. Strategies to optimise the tertiary outcomes of learners with ADHD.

  • Understand how the working memory of learners with ADHD performs to optimise their productivity.
  • Hear tips from post-graduate learners with ADHD, and tertiary staff, on successful strategies that they employed.

4. Tips for developing inclusive lessons and integrated learning strategies.

  • Find tools to support learners with ADHD in lessons and to get assignments done on time.
  • Hear more tips from tertiary staff on strategies that worked for them.

Complete all four modules, and provide some feedback on how you found this course, to get a certificate of completion. You can put a printed copy on your wall to let learners know that when they're in your office, they're in a safe space.

Developed with the support of the Tertiary Education Commission.

Do you have a learner with ADHD (or one you suspect has ADHD)?

​Depending on where you teach, you may or may not know whether you have any learners who have ADHD. While some tertiary education organisations ask learners to disclose an ADHD diagnosis during the enrolment process, only a few pass that information on to the relevant faculties. ​

Alternatively, this may sound familiar to you:

“It’s the audacity that they feel that they have to minimise my achievements or belittle how much effort I’ve been able to put into being able to get this far without knowing anything about me; without knowing the challenges; and being unwilling to have conversations like that.” - learner.

“A typical presentation is a really hard-working student who just tries and tries and tries, but they can’t get a handle on it and then they feel overwhelmed” - Learning Advisor.

The best way to find out if someone has ADHD is to ask, such as:

  • in your first lesson, let everyone know that you designed your course to be inclusive
  • invite anyone who is disabled or has learning difficulties to tell you privately and suggest ways they might do that.

​​​​​​​ADHD is real

ADHD impacts the functioning of the pre-frontal cortex (part of the frontal lobe).

So, for people with ADHD, automatically controlling and filtering attention, behaviours, and emotions, which come more naturally to others, is so much harder.

Neurodevelopmental impairments in the pre-frontal cortex of someone with ADHD:

  • ​executive functioning - which includes our ability to plan and organise
  • filtering and controlling attention
  • energy or motor control
  • emotional regulation
  • judgement, and/or
  • behaviour.

Without a diagnosis of ADHD these impairments are often interpreted as:

  • emotional outbursts
  • ​wilful laziness, forgetful
  • disorganised, often late
  • hyperactive, fidgets a lot
  • easily distracted, inattentive, day dreamer, and/or
  • acts before thinking; disruptive; misses social cues when interacting with others.

Because of misinterpretations, many will have had a range of unhappy experiences during school or at home, but the good news is that there is support available.