teaching strategies for ignoring distractions

you’ve planned your entire thesis on strategies you are unaware of?
interesting concept!

What do you think will work?
(aside from having them bring a walkman, headphones and wordless music)

judih

I’m a little stumped by this one too. What is it that makes them distractible? If it’s ADD, that’s one thing. If it’s processing difficulties that’s another thing entirely. One strategy might not work for both of those issues.

Usually we try to sit distractible students in the front of the room to minimize the distractions. Often I will give them a handout as well as the instructions on the board so they can read along while I go over directions. Sometimes I assign them each a ‘study buddy’ but rarely if ever do I expect them to have their distractions fully in hand themself.

The only thing I could suggest is checking out Mel Levine’s Educational Care book. Perhaps it will have some ideas for you.

Good luck.

Children with classic ADHD who display involuntary distractibility have a lifelong neurological challenge which cannot be taught out of them any more than epilepsy can be taught out of a person.

Some children do much better in classrooms which are sound resistant.

The notion of switching a child with ADHD or epilepsy from a special education equipped classroom/sound resistant classroom to a regular classroom and expecting the ADHD or epilepsy to magically disappear is outside the known idea of what neurological challenges really are it seems to me.

Perhaps what you are thinking about is teaching them strategies for self-monitoring. For example, you could give them a checklist to follow for all tests, along the lines of “read it all before you start, skip over questions you don’t know right away and come back to them later, check you work before you hand it in.” You certainly can teach children ways to better keep track of what they are doing and, if you constantly reinforce it may become a habit, but there are no strategies for teaching them how not to get distracted. For those with ADHD, distractibility is part of their neurological makeup. You can help them to understand that about themselves, but “paying attention” is more than just a matter of learning strategies (or of will or education for that matter) for these children.

i’ve heard of audiocassettes that play tones at intermittent intervals— the idea is the student plays the tape and rewards himself if he is on task when the tone sounds. I think they were sold by addwarehouse. They are supposed to help the child spend more time on task.