Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a brain-based condition affecting how people focus, manage impulses, and regulate their activity levels. It can cause challenges with attention, organisation, and self-control. Once thought to affect only children, ADHD is now recognised as a lifelong condition. Most people continue to experience symptoms into adulthood, and adult-onset ADHD is also medically recognised. This blog post takes a look at how to support students with ADHD both in the classroom and at home.
How Does ADHD Affect Daily Life?
People with ADHD often find it difficult to stay focused or organised. This can make school, work, or daily routines feel overwhelming. ADHD also impacts emotional regulation and impulse control, which can cause tension in friendships, family life, or work relationships.
Fortunately, ADHD is highly manageable. Medication, therapy, ADHD coaching, tutoring, and lifestyle strategies can all reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.
What Exactly Is ADHD?
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that impacts attention, impulse control, and emotional regulation. While it’s usually linked with inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, every individual shows a different combination of these traits.
ADHD usually occurs in childhood, but it isn’t always recognised early. For many people, symptoms become more noticeable later in life. Adulthood introduces new roles and responsibilities, such as university, work, or parenting, which bring new challenges. They can reveal difficulties and symptoms that had previously been well-managed.
Although some children grow out of ADHD, this is rare. Many adults discover their ADHD only after years of frustration or missed diagnoses. This is often due to limited awareness of how to spot ADHD symptoms among parents, teachers and even GPs.
Risks Associated with Undiagnosed ADHD
Girls are in particular danger of underdiagnosis. This is due in part to a lack of understanding of the many different ways ADHD can present. Girls with ADHD often exhibit symptoms that differ from the classic "hyperactive" presentation of ADHD more commonly seen in boys. Instead, they may show symptoms like inattention, daydreaming, disorganisation, or forgetfulness. Their symptoms are often more internal and less outwardly disruptive than boys’. Instead of visible hyperactivity, girls may seem dreamy, disorganised, or forgetful.
Because these behaviours appear mild, adults may mistake them for anxiety or daydreaming. Additionally, outdated stereotypes, such as “ADHD is a boy’s disorder”, still influence teachers and clinicians, leading to gender bias in diagnosis.
Untreated ADHD can pose a severe risk to health and well-being. The negative impacts of undiagnosed/untreated ADHD include:
- higher likelihood of being dismissed from or impulsively quitting jobs
- increased tendency towards addiction and impulsive behaviours such as gambling
- a high risk of developing comorbid conditions such as anxiety and depression.
With early diagnosis and the right support, these outcomes can be prevented.
ADHD Strengths
ADHD isn’t only about challenges. It also brings a wealth of strengths, such as high levels of creativity and out-of-the-box problem-solving. As Drs. Ned Hallowell and John Ratey explain in ADHD 2.0:
“it helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.”
When ADHD is understood and supported, these traits become powerful assets.
Here are some ADHD strengths:
- Creativity
- Compassion
- Excellent sense of humour
- Energy and enthusiasm
- An eye for detail that others miss
- Strong sense of justice
- Resillience
You can find even more in our blog post on ADHD Strengths here. At Sunbeam Education, our ADHD tutors and coaches help students recognise and use these strengths to thrive academically and personally.
What Causes ADHD?
The exact cause of ADHD remains unclear. However, research shows that genetics and environment both play key roles.
Studies suggest that when a parent has ADHD, around half of their children may meet criteria for ADHD, though estimates vary across studies. A high heritability indicates that genetics plays a significant role in ADHD. However, having a genetic predisposition towards developing ADHD does not necessarily mean that ADHD will develop.
Environmental factors can also contribute. Exposure to substances such as alcohol, nicotine, or lead during pregnancy may interfere with early brain development.
What Affects ADHD Symptoms
ADHD symptoms vary from day to day, and certain lifestyle factors can make ADHD traits harder to manage. Here are some of the most common culprits:
Stress
Stressful situations can make it difficult for people with ADHD to focus on what they’re doing and stay calm. Many people with ADHD are prone to activating the ‘fight or flight’ mode in reaction to seemingly small triggers. Indeed, studies have shown that individuals with ADHD have higher cortisol levels in stressful situations than people without a diagnosis. Heightened cortisol levels impact brain chemistry and impair impulse control, working memory, and emotional regulation.
Too Little Sleep
A lack of sleep may cause irritability and difficulty with focus, working memory and clear thinking. A consistent bedtime routine that includes time to wind down before sleep helps regulate mood and focus.
Poor nutrition habits
Unhealthy diets can lead to low energy levels, which can impair focus, mood, cognition and working memory. As people with ADHD can struggle with organisation, meal-planning can be challenging, leading to over-reliance on convenience foods. Struggles with working memory can also result in accidentally skipping meals or forgetting to drink enough water. Balanced meals and hydration stabilise attention and mood, and having a supply of healthy portable snacks available can combat ADHD forgetfulness.
Too much screen time
Mobile apps, TV shows, and games are designed to hold your attention for long periods. Digital overstimulation floods the brain with dopamine, reducing the ability to sustain focus on less stimulating tasks. As a result, they can cause addiction and overstimulation.
Sensory Overload
Too many distracting external stimuli can be unbearable to someone with ADHD, who may be unable to tune these things out. Many neurodivergent individuals experience sensory overload when their environments contain too many sensory triggers to process. For example in the classroom, students may struggle to deal with the simultaneous triggers of background noise, being too hot or cold, physical discomfort of uncomfortable chairs, the constraint of having to sit still at a desk, and itchy clothing labels. When sensory input dominates attention, cognitive focus suffers, and sensory overwhelm can lead to feelings of exhaustion and anxiety.
How Is ADHD Diagnosed?
The process usually starts when a parent, teacher, or young person notices ongoing difficulties with focus, organisation, emotions, or activity levels. If these concerns affect daily life, the school SENCo or GP can make a referral. There is no single test for ADHD. Instead, a specialist such as a paediatrician, psychiatrist, or clinical psychologist carries out a full assessment.
If you suspect ADHD in your child, speak to your school SENCo first. They will consult with you about the support that can be offered to your child at school. A GP or school SENCo can then refer the student to a specialist for an ADHD diagnosis if further support is needed.
During the assessment, the specialist gathers a developmental history and looks at behaviour in more than one setting (for example, home and school). They often use questionnaires or rating scales from parents, teachers, and sometimes the young person. They also check for other conditions, such as anxiety, learning differences, or sleep issues, to ensure that nothing else more clearly explains the traits.
It can be a great idea to collect relevant information ahead of these appointments. For adults, this ADHD Self Report Scale can be a beneficial document, and parent and teacher questionnaires are available to complete on behalf of children.
According to NHS guidelines, ADHD can be diagnosed in children when the traits:
- began before age 12,
- appear in at least two environments, and
- have a significant impact on daily life.
If these criteria are met, the specialist will confirm the diagnosis and talk through next steps. Support may include reasonable adjustments at school, therapy, coaching, or medication. For many people, getting an ADHD diagnosis is an empowering experience. It offers clarity, provides access to support, and helps them understand how their brain works so they can thrive.
Creating ADHD-inclusive Classrooms
Teachers play a key role in supporting students with ADHD. Early identification, open communication between parents, SENCo and student, and inclusive teaching strategies make a big difference. Students with ADHD must be provided with accommodations to help them succeed academically.
Engage students with multisensory teaching, using a varied approach that includes hands-on activities, games, and movement breaks. This helps sustain attention and boosts participation. Students with ADHD require a high level of engagement to grab their interest, and they will be enthusiastic and responsive learners when you have their attention!
Allow extended time for assignments or tests, and offer second attempts for mastery. Flexibility promotes learning without fear of failure, and students have numerous opportunities to learn from past attempts and improve at a pace that suits them.
Practical Classroom Tips
- Provide a quiet space for focused work.
- Offer headphones to students who struggle with background noise.
- Use timers to support task transitions and develop time-awareness.
- Share handouts early so students can prepare and refer to written instructions.
- Teach and reinforce executive function skills like organisation, planning, and time management.
- Teach students how to use visual planners or digital reminders for organisation.
- Keep parents involved through regular communication.
- Give clear written instructions to reduce memory load.
Supporting Your Child At Home:
- If your child struggles with procrastination, encourage them to do their work by sitting with them during the task. This provides gentle motivtion and accountability, frequently referred to as body-doubling.
- Help your child organise their homework and daily routines, especially when organising and prioritising tasks. Show them how to use organisational tools such as calendars, visual timetables, or alarms to help them manage their workload.
- Assist with time management, including setting up a routine for doing homework and other activities such as cleaning their room or tidying up after themselves (this may also involve helping them learn how to use an alarm clock).
- Support, but make sure they develop independence too. Allow them to try, fail, and learn problem-solving skills. People with ADHD tend to be creative and effective problem solvers. They might amaze you with what they come up with!
- An ADHD Coach or Tutor can help your child keep up with school work and develop self-supporting coping strategies for school, social, and home life that will work with their ADHD brain wiring.
Their way may seem unorthodox, but children with ADHD can often develop creative and efficient strategies for success, and this type of out-of-the-box problem-solving skill is cause for celebration!
Everyday Strategies for People With ADHD
Various lifestyle choices and adjustments can help manage symptoms and help you perform at your best.
- A healthy, balanced diet can help to alleviate ADHD symptoms and is important for physical and mental well-being. Try to eat a wide variety of nutritious foods, including nuts, grains, fruit, and vegetables, and avoid excess sugar. Sugar causes the release of dopamine. This dopamine hit significantly impacts the brain’s reward system and sends a positive reinforcement signal for sugar, which can lead to unhealthy eating habits or even sugar addiction. It’s best to consume sugar in moderation and avoid using sweet treats as a reward for good behaviour.
- Exercise and sports are fantastic for both the brain and the body. It can improve mood and physical health and alleviate ADHD symptomsRegular physical exercise has been proven to improve school performance in pupils with ADHD. It’s also a great way to use up some of that restless, hyperactive energy!
- Maintain a regular sleep routine, including quiet time before bed. Avoid using phones or tablets for an hour before bedtime, as they can overstimulate the brain, making it harder to fall asleep.
- Avoid overstimulation from technology, including social media and video games, by setting aside screen-free time each day. This will give your brain a chance to rest after absorbing so much information throughout the day!
