Elementary School Children Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... AD/HD characteristics can be seen in affected children at a very young age, manifesting by the age of seven years. The difficulties that these children experience from AD/HD persist in most cases into adolescence and adulthood (Kormos & Smith, 2012). The persistence of the symptoms of AD/HD into adolescence is to the tune of 80%, along with the risk of persistence into adulthood. Adults with ADHD have shown a marked tendency for having lower occupational status, inferior social relationships, high risk for motor accidents, and potential for developing substance, placing a high premium on early detection and optimal management (Faraone, et al, 2003). Nature and Causes of AD/HD Neuropsychological functions that are impaired in AD/HD are broken down into attention and executive functions, with alertness and vigilance as subdivisions attention functions and working memory and response inhibition under executive functions. Cognitive flexibility, and planning have also been identified as other possible neuropsychological functions impaired by AD/HD. Attention pertains to the ability of the child for facilitated processing of one bit of information over other pieces of information. Alertness refers to the quickness in response to a stimulus. Vigilance pertains to the presence of errors in task undertaking. It is the executive functions that enable a child to plan the required steps towards a set objective, retain these steps in memory and act through it and monitoring progress achieved using these steps. Working memory pertains to the ability retain something in the mind temporarily while working on something else, or while utilizing it in the performance an action. Inhibition or interruption of the ability to respond during dynamic behavioral actions is termed as response inhibition (Aguiar, Eubig & Schantz, 2010). The executive functions hypotheses that it is a part of neuropsychological functional impairments in AD/HD have not received full universal acceptance. However, Lambek et al, 2011, after comparing executive functions in a sample of 49 school-age children in the age group 7 years to 14 years, with a control of 196 children in the same age group, report that in general children with AD/HD demonstrate more impairment of executive function deficits. Furthermore, 50% of children with AD/HD demonstrated robust executive function deficits in comparison to the other children (Lambek, et al, 2011). Signs and Symptoms in the Classroom Students with hyperactivity and impulsiveness will demonstrate signs of being active all the time, unable to sit still, and constantly chattering. Impulsiveness in these students will result in their blurting answers prior to the completion of the questions posed. They are also likely to interrupt other students in their answers and act or speak without prior thought. The inattentive nature of the disease in some students may result in teachers considering them as less of a problem then the hyperactive and impulsive students. Yet, they demonstrate poor success in classroom assessments, owing to their short attention span, or poor concentration ability, or focus on critical activities of learning. These students may also show difficulty in task initiation, finishing of tasks, and completing tasks in a timely manner (Smith et al, 2012). Lauth, Huebeck, and Mackowiak, 2006, reporting after observing a sample of 55 children with AD/ ...Download file to see next pagesRead More