How to write with ADHD

By Chris Zeigler Dendy, M.S.
www.additude.com

Half of all kids with ADHD struggle with writing, which can make every assignment — from straightforward worksheets to full-length essays — feel like torture. Boost your child’s skills with these strategies for school and home.

Studies suggest that more than half of children with ADHD struggle with writing. These students may have an overflow of creative ideas, but often struggle when it comes to getting these ideas onto paper.

Children with ADHD have a hard time getting started — and following through — on writing assignments because they have difficulty picking essay topics, locating appropriate resources, holding and manipulating information in their memory, organizing and sequencing the material, and getting it down on paper — all before they forget what they wanted to say. But these hurdles don’t have to stop them from writing. Discuss the following ADHD writing strategies with your child’s teacher so you can work together to ease the difficulties attention deficit children have with writing.

Solutions in the Classroom: Guide the Writing Process:
  • set up a note system - ask the student to write her notes about a topic on individual sticky notes. She can then group the notes together that feature similar ideas so she’ll be able to easily identify the major concepts of the subject from the groupings
  • start small and build skills - ask students with ADHD to write a paragraph consisting of only two or three sentences. As their skills improve, the students can start writing several paragraphs at a time
  • demonstrate essay writing - with the use of an overhead projector, write a paragraph or an entire essay in front of the class, explaining what you are doing at each step. Students can assist you by contributing sentences as you go. Students with ADHD are often visual learners, and tend to do better when they see the teacher work on a task
  • give writing prompts - students with ADHD usually don’t generate as many essay ideas as their peers. Help the children with ADHD increase their options for essay assignments by collecting materials that stimulate choices.

If the student is still struggling to get started, help him by sitting down and talking about the assignment with him. Review his notes from the brainstorming session and ask, “What are some ways you could write the first sentence?” If he doesn’t have an answer, say, “Here’s an idea. How would you write that in your own words?”

  • Encourage colourful description.
  • Students with ADHD often have difficulty “dressing up” their written words. Help them add adjectives and use stronger, more active verbs in sentences.
  • Explain the editing process.
  • Students with ADHD have a hard time writing to length and often produce essays that are too short and lacking in details. Explain how the use of adjectives and adverbs can enhance their composition. Show them how to use a thesaurus, too.
  • Allow enough time. Students with ADHD, especially those with the inattentive subtype, may take longer to process information and should receive extended time to complete assignments.

Solutions at Home:
  • encourage journals - have your child write down his thoughts about outings to the movies, visits with relatives, or trips to museums. Add some fun to the activity by asking your child to e-mail you his thoughts or text-message you from his cell phone
  • stock up on books, movies, games - these materials will introduce new vocabulary words and stimulate thinking. Explore these with your child and ask him questions about them to solicit his views.
  • assist with essay topic selection - children with ADHD have difficulty narrowing down choices and making decisions. Help your student by listening to all of his ideas and writing down three or four of his strongest topics on cards. Next, review the ideas with him and have him eliminate each topic, one next English assignment, have him dictate his thoughts to you as you write them out by hand or type them into the computer. As his skills improve over time, he’ll need less of your involvement in this process
  • brainstorm - once the topic is identified, ask him for all the ideas he thinks might be related to it. Write the ideas on sticky notes, so he can cluster them together into groupings that will later become paragraphs. He can also cut and paste the ideas into a logical sequence on the computer
  • be your child’s “scribe” - before your child loses his idea for the great American novel, or for his next English assignment, have him dictate his thoughts to you as you write them out by hand or type them into the computer. As his skills improve over time, he’ll need less of your involvement in this process
  • go digital - children with ADHD often write slower than their classmates. Encourage your child to start the writing process on a computer. This way, she’ll keep her work organized and won’t misplace her essay before it’s finished. Also, by working on the computer she can easily rearrange the order of sentences and paragraphs in a second draft
  • remind your child to proofread - let your child know that he’ll be able to catch errors if he proofreads his rough draft before handing it in. by one – until only the winner is left.

High-Tech Writing Helpers for Kids with ADHD - Portable word processor 
These battery-operated devices look like a computer keyboard with a small calculator screen. Lightweight and durable, portable word processors can be used at school for note-taking and writing assignments. Back home, files can be transferred to a PC or Mac. Basic models cost about $20.

Speech-recognition software 
Also called speech-to-text software, these programs allow students to read aloud into a microphone and see their words appear on a computer screen. Good programs include Dragon Naturally Speaking, for PCs and Dragon Nuance, for Macs.

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