Research on children with ADHD will soon help NZ teachers

Canterbury research on children with ADHD will soon help NZ teachers

February 24, 2015

A University of Canterbury international education PhD student’s survey of Ethiopian children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder will soon be helpful to New Zealand teachers and teacher trainers.

Doctoral student Feruz Mohammed says there are no recent studies in New Zealand, but international figures estimate up to six percent of primary school children suffer ADHD. The attention and activity problems that underlie ADHD interrupt learning social skills and social interactions. Mohammed is preparing a manual of the strategies that could be used to help New Zealand teachers.

The original plan was to conduct the study in Christchurch but the earthquakes made it difficult to bring teachers together and conduct the training for six weeks while teachers were struggling to help quake affected young children.

“It is concerning that children with ADHD may disrupt the learning of other children sharing the same classroom. Most teachers have no training in specialist strategies that could be used to help them support children with ADHD in their classrooms. That is true in New Zealand as well as in Ethiopia.

“My research showed that 36 hours of in-service training for teachers, plus collaborative and individual support, gave teachers the confidence and strategies they need to make a difference. This training helped the children in their classrooms who had ADHD to settle down, improve their attention to learning tasks. This was transferred to improved learning in their academic skills.

“This training added special strategies for children with ADHD to the internationally-used programme Incredible Years for Teachers. These strategies were easily integrated into the regular teaching routines and did not require extensive time on the part of the teachers, once they had learned the skills. It also definitely improved the relationships between the teachers and the children with ADHD.”

Her research has helped people in Ethiopia especially teachers and children in the study.

The Incredible Years Programme for teachers is available in New Zealand and is targeted for pre-school and primary teachers. The special adaptations that help primary teachers of children with ADHD are not yet available, although she hopes her manual, when finished, will be useful for schools. She is also working on disseminating her research findings through professional journals.

Mohammed’s research was supervised by the University’s School of Health Sciences’ Associate Professor Kathleen Liberty.

ends

© Scoop Media