The Effect of Environmental Accommodations on Attending Behavior of an ADHD Chapter 1 Student: An Action Research Study

Reference:
Greenwald, J. and Walsh, C. (1998). The Effect of Environmental Accommodations on Attending Behavior of an ADHD Chapter 1 Student: An Action Research Study. ERIC Digest, Apr 98, p.1-11.

An ADHD overview was supplied at the studies beginning, with a short history of the increasing diagnosis rates among children. The study was prompted by a teachers frustration when dealing with a particular ADHD student.

Of 57 children served by the researchers, 13 were diagnosed with ADHD. The study was done over a seven-and-a-half week timeframe. Tally marks were made on the masking tape attached to the teachers hand to measure the amount of time off-task, or “non-attending” behavior had occurred (Greenwald and Walsh, 1998, p.5). Two different treatments were issued: baseline, which were routines conditioned before the study, and intervention, allowing students to make more decisions.

During baseline, the subject was found off-task eight times in a class period. But after the first intervention, the average occurrence was only 6.3 times, and only 2.3 times after the second intervention, showing an effort on the tested subjects to stifle off-task behavior during class time.

Greenwald and Walsh, the experimenters, encourages teachers to experiment with instructional strategies regarding ADHD students. She criticizes her own study for having too many elements, and encourages other experimenters to use a setting of a longer time-span than one class period.
The needs of the ADHD students need to be matched correctly with the environment of the classroom setting. Since humans learn in multiple ways - hearing, seeing, etc. - the importance of a learning environment maximized for their potential is paramount to any other factor of the students’ education process.