Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) kids fidget.  They bounce around, seemingly unable to focus on the task at hand.  It affects their performance in school, with sufferers often lagging behind their peers. So it’s understandable why many parents turn to medication to help their kids calm down and focus more.  After all, this is their education you’re talking about.

But does calm mean increased concentration?  A new study from the University of Central Florida suggests not.  It suggests that kids with ADHD actually need to move in order to focus - completely contrary to popular belief to date.

Calm vs. Concentration

The research, reported by Physorg.com, studied 23 pre-teen boys - 12 with ADHD and 11 without - as they worked through problems that challenged their “working memory”, the short-term memory that most of us use unconsciously each day.

The tests, not easy by any means, included tasks such as number/order and visual pattern recall.  In every case, the boys with ADHD started tapping their hand, feet and generally bouncing about.  By contrast, the same boys became very still when watching movies clips or playing video games, supposedly more ‘ideal’ behaviour.

Catching a Wake-up

So what changed? The key difference was in the use of working memory or higher-level thinking.  The problem tasks required it and the movies and videos games did not.  In summary, when ADHD kids need to think, they move.  And when they don’t, they stay still.

Not that the results should be that surprising.  We all tend to move more when thinking hard.   I personally often get up, walk around or make myself something to drink or eat, while my brain churns over a problem.  It’s just that ADHD children move more than usual.

Dr Mark Rapport, a former school psychologist and ADHD disorder expert at the Children's Learning Clinic at UCF, suspects it has do to with their dopamine levels, which keeps us alert during normal day-to-day activities.  ADHD children are “under aroused”, so they need to move around to literally wake their bodies and brains up.

A Novel Approach to Teaching

The need to ‘wake up’ the system is not a new observation amongst many long-term teachers with experience with ADHD students.  In fact, some teachers, like Darcey Eckers of Orlando, now actively accommodates it in her class.  Instead of trying to prevent ADHD children from moving, she simply moves them towards the back of the classroom where if they need to fidget, stand, or pace to and fro, they can do so without disrupting the class around them.

Eckers, a 17-year veteran of New York and Florida schools, has found that ADHD children may be stifled by traditional ‘sit still, be quiet’ methods, but flourish when allowed to move a little.  The movement needed is often not substantial.  It can be as small as squeezing a stress ball or tapping a pencil as they work.  The point is that ADHD kids are allowed to move.

The research, along with the real-world class experiences above, offers new understanding and an alternative to managing children with ADHD.  Medication doesn’t always work for all children, with some even suffering from depression-like symptoms. A more inventive approach that incorporates vs. curbing fidgeting might be the way to go instead.

If you do have, or know of children diagnosed with ADHD, perhaps consider talking to their teacher or school to see whether such an approach could be tested.  You never know, it may just work.

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