Adults with ADHD/ADD and math

hi Connie; I am not sure if I can help, But for me math has been always my worst subject in school. I also am dislexic so this dosnt help. I would suggest that if you taught simply, but with a bit of time to explain how every thing is connected; and allow time for people to process the information this might be a start. Also find a way to make this subject intersting to learn, so the mind “like mine” dosent wonder and get side tracked but able to keep the intrest so the focus will be learning the math to keep. :)

All the best. I dont know what I just said, but had strong flash-backs, about how badly I failed in math…on the flip side, I know how to count money today.and I feel that really counts more then landing a rocket on the moon.
Good luck…….. neil

Landmark College may be a resource. I know courses are given on teaching ADHD and LD students.

Have you put your request for information on one of the bulletin boards for teachers?

Also, I would suspect that different students would have different ways of learning and different learning needs. (Students with ADHD often have other learning difficulties.) For example, a student who couldn’t deal with visual organization of the page and who might confuse visual symbols might need something different than a person who couldn’t understand the concepts that were being taught or the person who couldn’t remember the steps needed to perform an operation.

If I was teaching, I think I would first want to get a sense of what the students knew. What did they understand about fractions? Could they provide a definition and examples? Could they provide examples of adding fractions, subtracting fractions, etc.? When given examples (e.g., half a cake to split among four friends) would they understand what operation to perform? I would think it would be important for the concepts to be understood before the mechanics were taught.

Depending on student’s needs, varied strategies would be helpful. (e.g., not putting too many problems on a page, helping students to list the steps needed for each of the operations, etc.)

Although I’m good in math, I think of what might help me. I think that ways of checking work to see if answers made sense would be useful to counteract impulsive work. For example if the problem was to add one half and one quarter, the student could be asked to show this on a circle and then compare the drawing to the answer the student had gotten when performing the calculation.

Hi, I found these pages on this website (I hope they are useful!):

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/teaching_techniques/strategies.html#math

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/math_skills/math_jld.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ADHD_Bulletin_Board/

I would like to add to this post. I am a graduate student teaching a section of calculus 2. If anyone has suggestions on how to teach calculus to students with ADD I would really appreciate them. I am unable to relate any of my personal experiences to this situation.

I’m good at math, but I also have ADD.

For me, learning fundamentals well was crucial and fractions are important fundamentals.

For ADD adults, relate fractions to fractions w/ the same proportions often. It gives you an opportunity to repeat yourself, which is important.

Use visuals that can be cut and recombined, but are reckognizable as part of a common shape when in pieces. Anyone got any suggestions for this? Apple slices are the old standby.

Refer between the numbers and the visuals in a predictable, patterned way. This way, the students will be trying to guess ahead. Don’t be random about it—it’s a long explanation so just take it from me.

I remember Calculus 2 causing me some ADD-related difficulties.

Conceptually, it wasn’t more difficult than Calculus 1 since someone explained how it was an “opposite operation,” like division is to multiplication.

I did have trouble w/ keeping track of all the types of problems, like ones where you have to use trigonometric identities or separating out a complicated denominator. The hard part for me for these problems was that there were subtypes like using different identities or what “guess” to use to separate out the denominator. As a person w/ ADD, I am good at figuring out how to solve problems, but keeping track of a lot of tricks that it took scholars years to compile isn’t my deal.

It would’ve been helpful to have a list/chart of these types and subtypes I needed to know in some kind of organized format so that types of problems can be reckognized and then, as a second step, the trigonometric identity or “guess” can be used (Schaum’s outlines might already do this.). Persons w/ ADD often have problems with both organization and sequencing so it’s not surprising these methods caused me problems. Imagine those problems coupled w/ not being able to follow lectures or text to learn the tricks.

One other thing that would’ve been helpful to me is basic dimensional analysis. Just the basic checking of answers by making sure the “units” in an expression are consistent w/ what they should be (i.e., you can’t add or equate a length and a velocity). I didn’t get this until Taylor’s series in DiffEq. This would’ve been very useful for checking or debugging Calc 2 work. It also helps in understanding Calc 1&2 conceptually. I actually recall being angry I hadn’t been taught that sooner. The number of hours I spent looking for errors in problems that need not have been wasted…! If you’re a mathematician type, you may resist teaching people this for one of those mathematician type reasons (like counting five page problems wrong that don’t start w/ “Let I =”, but, please, if mathematicians have empathy or flexibility, make an exception in this case.

This class was the only class where I ever choked on the final. Each separate test dealt w/ one type of problem so I didn’t have to reckognize it and then the subtype wasn’t a second step anymore. However on the final, I got totally flabobbered. I got about a 12%. Averaged w/ my almost perfect scores from the other tests, I still pulled off a B. This is pretty telling that ADD and Calc 2 specifically can interact.

OT: Later, I asked the professor to write me a letter for a scholarship recommendation and he said it would have to be a negative one because I deproved in his class, going from an A in Calc 1 to a B in Calc 2. This was a year later and he remembered that off the top of his head! He had hundreds of students in the meantime.