In this third series of awareness articles on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) the Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Support Group of South Africa (ADHASA) Soweto branch is sharing information with parents on ADHD in the classroom.
As the founder of this Soweto group, Elizabeth Masike is a former professional nurse and a person who has lived with the condition for years and now she is helping other parents understand this condition better.
Masike says from her research in the classroom, children with ADHD do not hear instructions and they are disruptive and this is due to hearing problems, neurological difficulty or sometimes a combination of both.
“A child with recurring ear infections is likely to develop hearing problems.
“Some of them have difficulty with registering messages while this has nothing to do with the child not being able to try to do something, as it just means the child needs to be supported and helped.
“Others have a combination of both,” she says.
Masike says at school, children with this condition are sensitive to any type of touch and these are the children who regularly fight on the playground or when standing in line.
They may find certain sound to be distracting which means at times they cannot concentrate to subject matter like air conditioners or a pencil tapping.
As some schools prefer white boards to black boards this could also be a problem for these types of children with visual defensiveness as they might be unable to copy information from the board.
