Assessments and Planning

Assessments and Student-Specific-Plans 

Building upon our previous blog post, Manitoba's SSP Handbook Needs An Upgrade, we want to outline some practical ways that these documents can serve their true purpose: 

1. SSPs should inform school staff about a student's needs, strengths, accommodations, and the best ways to support them.  
2. SSPs should be strengths-based, written in a way that utilizes the student's strengths to help develop their areas of struggle, and that puts the onus on the school and the adults to provide appropriate supports and accommodations.  
3. SSPs should clearly outline these supports, accommodations, and best-practices in a way that is easy for school staff to understand and follow.  

The third point is where a lot of SSPs, assessments, and other planning documents fall short.  They may contain fantastic information and great recommendations, but if they are full of professional jargon or have unrealistic recommendations that the school doesn't have the resources to follow, then they won't be very useful to the student (or to anyone).  

Resources

As we mentioned in our previous blog post, it is the obligation of the school administration to advocate for their students and to push for the resources they need in order to provide appropriate support and accommodations.  That said, these processes take time, and the students are often left floundering in the mean time and it's the classroom teacher and students that are left to try to work together with only partial resources available to them.  That isn't fair to anyone.  

Staff Guidance

An important part of providing resources is ensuring that staff have adequate qualifications, skills, and training in order to meet the needs of the students.  What we've found is that quite often school staff have a meeting, review and update the SSP, then that SSP is filed away in a drawer to gather dust while everyone fumbles along doing the best they can without proper guidance.  School staff need in-the-moment guidance for “when this happens, here is what you do.” SSP and assessment reports may be too general for the staff to make use of them if they don’t know how to handle specific scenarios in the moment.  

Have We Mentioned... Resources?

Again, this comes down to the Manitoba Government providing adequate funding that is specifically earmarked for these types of supports and training.  

Schools need:

1. Proper funding so as to recruit, hire, train, and retain qualified, experienced, and skilled staff.  
2. Proper funding so as to have the time and finances to pay staff to attend additional relevant training.  
3. The mandate that administrators provide the time, coverage, and support for staff to attend relevant training opportunities.  
4. Most importantly, opportunities for clinical teams and experts to provide on-the-job guidance, mentorship, and training for school staff.  

We cannot stress this enough:  

One hour of on-the-job training is worth 8 hours of sitting at a workshop and retaining maybe 20% of what we hear.  

If administrators can spare the time and expense of just one hour per month (or more if they can!) of on-the-job training for their staff, they will reap the benefits in spades.  Staff will feel empowered when they are given the proper tools to do their jobs, rather than being thrown in unprepared and then held accountable (dare we say, blamed?) when things go wrong.  Most importantly, the students will reap the benefits of competent, confident support staff in their schools and classrooms.  It is often the students that shoulder most of the blame when things go wrong, leading to poorer academic outcomes and lower self-esteem.

Practical and Realistic Solutions

The next time you're sitting in a school meeting and everyone around the table feels satisfied that you've come up with wonderful accommodations and recommendations, before you put the proverbial rubber stamp on that SSP, ask one very important question: Practically speaking, what will this look like in the day-to-day life of the school staff and the student?  How exactly, and very specifically, will we be implementing these accommodations and recommendations?  Go through the student's day step-by-step if you have to, outlining exactly where the struggles come up, and what the adults can do moment-to-moment to help that student develop the skills they need to manage, work around, and overcome these difficulties.  

Practically speaking, what will this look like in the day-to-day life of the school staff and the student?  How exactly, and very specifically, will we be implementing these accommodations and recommendations?

For more information on writing effective SSPs, please see our previous blog post.  

At the end of the day, the student's needs must come first.  Each student has the right to accommodations that put them on a level playing field with their peers.  The goal of an SSP, or any planning for a student, must be to make the student's school life easier, and to support them to be successful.  The goal is not to make the adult's lives easier, but when we provide the right supports for the student and adequate training for staff, the two will come hand-in-hand.  

If you need assistance advocating for your child, or if you are seeking training for your staff, please do not hesitate to contact us.  

About the Author

Jillian is an ADHD 2e Coach and Child Advocate in Manitoba, Canada.

Jillian has a diploma in Child & Youth Work and a Degree in Psychology, as well as being the parent of an amazing 2e/ADHD child.

Visit ADHDMB.ca and Facebook.com/ADHD2ePro to learn more.

If you need help educating your child's school, your family, or with general ADHD coaching or advocacy, please feel free to contact us.  

Dispelling Common ADHD Myths

Common Myths About ADHD 

Following up on our most popular blog post of 2020, 7 Ways ADHD is Misunderstood, we're going to expand by talking about prevalent ADHD myths.  The most common myths we hear about ADHD are:  

• "ADHD is a Learning Disability"
• "ADHD is a Behaviour Disorder"
• "ADHD is a modern disorder"
• "ADHD is caused by: bad parenting, too much screen time, diet, "chemicals", etc." 
• "Children with ADHD just need more discipline"

Have you heard these before?  We read them almost every day online and have experienced the harmful effects of these faulty beliefs from adults who should know better, such as teachers, principals, and other professionals.  

In this blog post, we'll take a look at each of these myths and explain why they are just that: Myths.  Untrue.  Inaccurate.  Perpetuating, believing, and acting upon these misguided concepts can cause harm to neurodiverse people, particularly children.   

 

ADHD is a NOT Learning Disability

ADHD is highly comorbid (co-occurring) with Learning Disabilities, but is not in and of itself a learning disability.  ADHD does not cause intellectual disabilities and, generally speaking, children with ADHD tend to have an above-average IQ.  

ADHD is a neurobiological or neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning it impacts the way the brain grows, develops, and functions (we'll repeat this a few times because it's an important point for people to remember). 

 

ADHD is NOT a Behaviour Disorder

"ADHD is NOT a disorder of behaviour, but a developmental impairment of the management system of the brain — its executive functions.” (Brown, 2013)

Children with ADHD may behave impulsively (react before thinking things through), which may result in more undesirable or unexpected behaviours.  This, however, is a symptom of the Executive Functioning difficulties with ADHD, and not an act of willfulness or intentional misbehaviour on the part of the child.  

ADHD is NOT a modern disorder 

ADHD is a neurobiological or neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning it impacts the way the brain grows, develops, and functions.  It has been around for as long as humans have had brains (so, like, forever); ADHD just didn't receive its current name until scientists got around to understanding more about it.  

ADHD is not new.  It was first described in the medical literature all the way back in 1775 (Barkley & Peters, 2012).  That was well over 200 years ago, so attempts to blame ADHD and its symptoms on too much screen time or too much sugar fat flat.  

ADHD is NOT caused by bad parenting

Yes, the way we support children and respond to their needs will certainly effect how much or little their disability impacts their life on a daily basis.  However, children are born with ADHD, it is not caused.  

Wait, I take that back.  

ADHD is primarily caused by genetics.  It is highly heritable (meaning it is easily passed down from biological parent to child).  It is estimated to have a heritability of 75%, which is considered very high.   

ADHD is a neurobiological or neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning it impacts the way the brain grows, develops, and functions.  While some behaviours during pregnancy (such as smoking, for example) can increase the risk of neurodevelopmental problems in the developing baby, a child is born with the brain they are born with, and subsequent parenting choices or parenting styles do not cause ADHD to "develop".  

 

Children with ADHD do NOT simply "need more discipline"

Let's be honest here, when adults say a child "needs more discipline", what they usually mean is punishment (or retribution).  They want to "teach that kid a lesson".  It is estimated that children with ADHD receive an average of 20,000 more corrections or negative comments than their neurotypical peers before the age of 12 (Jellinek, 2010).  So if a child is repeatedly given negative messages about behaviours largely outside of their control due to their neurobiological development, then what lesson are we teaching them?  

Children with ADHD often have difficulty connecting actions with their consequences, especially with those consequences are delayed, due to difficulties with Executive Functioning.  The "needs more discipline" myth is such a prevalent and harmful one that we have actually written two different blogs on the perils of punishment. 

"Punishment" Does Not Work and Punishments Don't Teach Skills 

What excessive discipline or negative messaging can do is cause low self-esteem in children.  Unfortunately, being frequently berated and shamed for behaviours that are largely outside of their control is bound to have that effect.

  

Why Does It Matter?

It matters.  A LOT.  Like, a whole heck of a lot.  

When it is understood that a child is dealing with a brain-based disability, that their unexpected or undesired behaviours are not intentionally malicious, then we can move from blaming the child for being born with a differently wired brain to having compassion for their struggles.  When we acknowledge and accept that there is a lot about their difficulties that they cannot control, and that children with ADHD need support to manage the symptoms of their disability, then we can come beside them instead of at them.  They'll finally have an adult (or adults, plural, hopefully!) on their side, after potentially years of feeling like a "bad" kid, but not knowing how to do any better.

Instead of expecting the children to do better, first we the adults must do better.  Then the children will feel better, then they can learn the skills they need, and only then can they do better.  

About the Author

Jillian is an ADHD 2e Coach and Child Advocate in Manitoba, Canada.

Jillian has a diploma in Child & Youth Work and a Degree in Psychology, as well as being the parent of an amazing 2e/ADHD child.  

Visit ADHDPro.ca and Facebook.com/ADHD2ePro to learn more.