Do You Teach students with ADHD?
Here’s how you can get the best out of them and turn their behaviors around!
ADHD or the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder……As music teachers it’s that catch phrase we tend to use for those hyperactive, poorly behaved, loud, fidgety, disorganized, disruptive and even stubborn children who just won’t do what you want them to do, when you want them to do it. And lets face it – we’ve all worked with them even if there’s not been a proper medical diagnosis!
It’s usually the lesson we dread or want to put off until another time and we usually say things to ourselves like “I don’t get paid enough for this” when we’re about to go into their lesson.
If we were really truthful to ourselves, we’d say that there’s a bit of ADHD in all of us and as we grow up, we tend to learn more positive ways of getting what we want and where we want to go. Just look at the average 3 year old child… Don’t they show the symptoms? Yet we don’t label them with this because they’re “too young” and we all tend to say things like “They’ll grow out of it “. Of course some learn to quicker than others. Infact it’s well noted that over 8 million American adults still suffer from it and through history some of the most famous names have had it!
Parents with children who suffer from ADHD or show some of the symptoms love sending their children to studio music lessons and we can all see why. There’s less distraction from other children, there’s more focus on the individual child, they can progress at they’re own rate and ability level and they make loads of noise without it distracting too many others… apart from us teachers that is!
So the question is How do we positively guide them through the process of learning music without it stressing us out and giving up on them!
Here are some tips that may be useful to you and may be able to get you started:
Tip #1 : Use Short Segments
If you break your lessons up into shorter segments, then you’ll have more chance of keeping hyperactive students on task and focussed. You can divide lessons into just a few minutes at a time if needed and you can divide it up into playing segments, musical game segments, music writing on a whiteboard, singing segments and rhythm playing segments- the trick is to make it all interconnect with relevant short activities.
Tip #2 : Make small achievable goals
With music, we can easily overload our students with so much information at a time. There’s the notes they need to read, the fingers they have to use, not to mention the technique they’ve got to remember – it can all be just too much in one hit! Try finding small achievable tasks to overcome at a time, it may be using a particular playing technique in one section, using the correct fingering in a piece or section or knowing how to read notes. Simply find fun ways to break the learning process down into achievable steps.
Tip # 3: Repetition
Find ways to repeat the information your students need to know in different ways. For example if they need to learn some new notes, they can play them, they can write them, they can play a game with them,they can practice them on a paper template, they can play them on a different instrument, they can sing them.. the combinations are endless and use what works best for you and your own students.
Tip# 4 : Make it Fun!
If music is fun then students will not only participate more, but they will also retain more too! Use music games and make everything you do in your classes into a game. You can make learning notes into a note race game, you can track playing progress onto a chart game, you can track singing into a game, you can play flashcard games, card games and board games. To check out the games which I’ve used for many years and helped develop you can check out at http://www.printablemusicgames.com
Of course, I would love your feedback on this issue so please feel free to leave your’re success stories and feedback in the comment box below as I’m sure we all have strategies and techniques that we can share on this topic.
This is a guest post from Janice Tuck, Music Teacher and “Chief Musical Fun Officer” of the Fun Music Company. You can read related articles on Janice’s Blog at
http://www.musicteachersblog.com
The only time I dread an ADHD student is when I don’t know that I am dealing with one! Since a few students over the years have turned out to have this issue, I now ask about any learning challenges in the introductory lesson questionnaire. And yes, all the suggestions on this article are right on. But it is most helpful for the parent or student to let you know right away so you don’t mistake improper behavior for ADD or ADHD. This way, you can prepare the lessons accordingly as you know more about what you’re getting into!
Great article…thanks for your insight. I also have a strong interest in the area of ADD and APD. Please visit our site and read my article Attention Deficit Disorder Verses Auditory Processing Disorder – A Big Difference at http://www.learningsolutionsathome.com. Thanks and take care, Lucy Barlow
I only have one student that has ADHD, that I know of. His mother teaches at the local public school, and she made sure to let me know at the first meeting. I’ve found that staying calm and showing genuine interest in what he thinks or how he feels about the lessons helps a lot. Also, sometimes I have to break an individual activity into short segments of only a few seconds each. There are times when his focus needs to be reinforced on the task at hand quite frequently, in order to complete a full exercise or even a short part of a piece of music.
I think most diagnoses of ADD or ADHD are wrong or overblown. Not that it doesn’t exist, but I think 90% of ADD is about children’s TV, video, popular music and computer experiences being relentless in attempting to keep children “entertained” without a second of down time. Teachers desperate to connect with students only add to this overload. American parents today are so busy, usually with two working parents and many personal urgent needs or 70 hour a week jobs, email, Blackberries, etc., that for some, it’s easier to diagnose a problem and let themselves off the hook than to have the patience to spend time with kids. I know of one case of alleged ADD that was “diagnosed” by a schoolteacher without any medical exam. The parents went straight for the drugs to “treat” the poor kid.
As to teaching experiences. I’ve had several kids who, I was told, had ADD, and yet I was able to engage them and they were able to focus for 30 or 45 minutes without a problem. That made me very suspicious of the diagnosis. In one case I noticed that the boy got stymied and distracted but if I came back to the same problem a little later, it turned out that he had it sorted out. If I had pressed him when he was stymied, it would have made things worse and embarrassed him, and might have “proved” he was easily distracted if I already believed he had that problem.
Overall I think the suggestions in this post are very good, but should be applied to all students, not just those that we (somewhat arrogantly) label as ADHD. As the article points out, everyone has symptoms at an early enough age, and sometimes we all have it when overloaded.
It seems when a diagnosis gets an official name, lots of people suddenly jump on board with it, or label others with it. Labels can’t get us off the hook, thankfully, of having the chance to work with real people who want to learn music and do the best they can with what they have.
I too get a lot of these kids who have “ADHD”. I put it in quotes, because I think it’s terrible the way so many healthy, creative kids are labeled as having a disorder. On the contrary, I have found that looking at these children as being more intensely creative and gifted has allowed me the opportunity to open them up to their natural musical gifts. I never have a problem engaging them, ever since I read the book “The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived.” It describes children with the same charachterstics as children with ADHD. Once I realized that these kids just need a different approach, I found out how extremely talented and gifted they truly are. They tend to excel in Improv and Song Writing, in my experience. The theory stuff: yes that is challenging. But I think it’s best to be patient and try to make it as fun as possible. Great article! Important subject to learn about.
Have found this with some of my guiar students.
[...] a child has developed a comfort level with music, lessons may be appropriate. The Music Teacher’s Blog outlines four easy suggestions for teaching music to children with ADHD. These tips are appropriate [...]