Effective Accommodations for High School Student Newly Diagnosed with ADHD

[HighSchoolMom]

Hi.  My High School Junior daughter was diagnosed with ADHD last year. We have finally gotten the school to do a  504 process. I am looking for accommodations that have been effective for your high school-age student.

Since she was diagnosed so recently, she has not had the benefit of training/teachings from a younger age. To top that off, she is a super-sociable teenager who will anyway be distracted by other distractions. Almost all accommodation examples I see seem more effective for younger children, not her age/school. e.g. "Break down tasks in smaller chunks." Is this meaningful to ask for at 11th grade? I am also worried that with too much adult intervention (e.g. teacher trying to monitor her assignments), she will be more dependent on external motivation - but in 2 years, she will have to apply all that in college. Anyone in my shoes?  would love to hear your perspective about training/coaching an almost-adult child, and also, any good accommodations that were helpful.  FYI we don't think she has any big learning issues because she had great grades in all subjects until recently. So I am looking for accommodations related to attention/focus, task initiation, exec functioning skills. I am also looking for ideas about how to manage her behavior at home and teach her useful skills. Thank you all.

[EmilyM]

In a lot of ways, breaking down tasks is a natural strategy many older teens and adults do for themselves, often without even thinking about it, and is actually an important skill for college. The thing is, a college class likely wouldn't arrange it for the student.

So, I'd go with it, with a focus on teach her how to do it herself (though that may be more of an IEP accommodation than 504...)

One difficulty you do seem to recognize is that she has gotten the 504 at an age where many other students in her shoes are working on reducing/taking charge of their accommodations. 

[JSD24]

Given she has 2 years to figure out how to get herself organized, she might benefit from specially designed instruction via an IEP in addition to accommodations.  Being seated away from distractions in the classroom might help - in other words, away from her BF.  Having the teacher give her reminders to stay on task can also help.  They can work with her during study hall to stay on task & get her work done.  Colleges can offer the same sorts of accommodations.

An IEP or 504 will help during school hours but it seems she has needs at home.  A therapist can help her with things outside of school - like if she's focusing on her phone rather than doing homework.  IMO, this is where the distractions will be in college.  She'll be going to parties and meeting new people but her dirty clothes pile will be out of control & she'll be behind in getting reading done for classes.  Psychologists/therapists can help with this.  She can be taught strategies so she can be better organized - both with her things & her time.

[HighSchoolMom]

Thanks both. She has a therapist and a ADHD coach at home, but either her progress is supe---e---r  slow, or they are not effective. I agree that even now she is on phones or parties and her dirty clothes pile on!!  And she barely listens to me.

[Lisa Lightner]

Well....not all behavior is related to their disability 

If you have an ADHD coach that you like and trust and works well with her, you should start to see results. But wanting to be social and on your phone and not listening to your mom is typical teen behavior.

[EmilyM]

52 minutes ago, Lisa Lightner said:

Well....not all behavior is related to their disability 

If you have an ADHD coach that you like and trust and works well with her, you should start to see results. But wanting to be social and on your phone and not listening to your mom is typical teen behavior.

If I may continue with humor, this sounds like a potential game of "ADHD or Typical Teen?"

[Lisa Lightner]

Well, I also want to add that I'm not trying to gaslight mom either. But as a mom to two teens myself, one of them disabled, I know that I often have to make a conscious effort to stop, think and process what is happening. I'm sometimes too quick to try to troubleshoot a scenario and pin it to the disability. When often times, I can just say, "Yeah, and non disabled teens do this all the time, too."

[EmilyM]

7 minutes ago, Lisa Lightner said:

Well, I also want to add that I'm not trying to gaslight mom either. But as a mom to two teens myself, one of them disabled, I know that I often have to make a conscious effort to stop, think and process what is happening. I'm sometimes too quick to try to troubleshoot a scenario and pin it to the disability. When often times, I can just say, "Yeah, and non disabled teens do this all the time, too."

I think that's very sensible, especially when you may often be in the mindframe of "how is their disability impacting them?" It's good advice to stop and think about what is the disability and what is no more and no less being a kid/teen and an individual at that?

[ANagy15]

Is she taking medication and does that seem to help?  There are 2 kinds short acting and long acting.  My daughter and I take short acting while my son takes long acting.  Short acting is very helpful in getting my daughter to be able to focus and complete her Math homework without too much frustration.  The only problem is you have to take it multiple times a day.  Which teens might not what to do or remember to do.  At home use a timer and a screen time parent app to be able to shut-off access to parts of her phone after a certain time at night and/or she used up all of her allocated minutes which can be set for individual apps.  Like she can only be Instagram for 1 hour a day.   Let her take a break when she gets home before homework.  Work on making homework schedules and plans.  Model for her how to break up bigger projects.  What you need to do is scaffold the skills she needs to learn.  With you or her teacher teaching the routine and then slowly releasing the help given and transferring the responsibility in small pieces so she can feel successful with each step before she has to do all of it.  

At school ask for extra time on tests and projects, written study guides, directions to be given in oral and written form.  If she can have a study skills class/guided study hall.  Extra set of textbooks to keep at home.  

Ask her to brainstorm or list all the things she is good at and the things that are hard at school.  Then ask her if she could think of any things that would make school easier.  Is there a specific class that is hard or is it remembering to turn in assignments?  Are they electronic assignments in Google classroom or paper assignments?  How does she organize her notes?  In a notebook where pages won't fall out or a binder?  What if she uses tape and just a notebook so she can keep everything for that class in one place.  Maybe even a 3 subject notebook.  Then get a LARGE 3 inch binder that can fit loose leaf paper, hard plastic folders, and her notebooks. For her 4 or 5 main academic classes they should be 2 subject notebooks and electives can be 1 subject notebooks.  

She also needs to learn how to use a paper planner and her online calendar on her phone. 

If there are specific times she needs to do things then she can set alarms on her phone to remind her.