Full Potential

For Parents and Teachers
Is your pre-schooler being labelled as ‘ADHD’?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

It’s come to my attention that quite a few very young boys are being described as ‘ADHD’ or hyperactive. They seem to be regarded as being overly ‘busy’, mainly by their preschool teachers. Are we forgetting that most young children are highly active, energetic and generally spend much time ‘on the move’? My long years of experience have shown that highly active young boys generally settle down as they grow, perform well at school and fail to develop any attention or other learning related problems.

So why are teachers sometimes labelling youngsters incorrectly? Perhaps we need to consider how they come to this decision and consider what other aspects may be contributing to the children’s inattentive behaviours.

A child who fails to concentrate in one situation is in danger of being seen as a child who can’t concentrate in any situation. If a child doesn’t sit still he is in danger of being called hyperactive. His parents might be panicked into believing hyperactivity and poor concentration are permanent conditions which will need specialist treatment, including medication.

Highly mobile youngsters may show a disinclination to sit down and engage in table tasks. Their preference will be for outdoor play, usually very physical. Or others may seem to dislike concentrating on teaching materials, rejecting colouring-in, crafts, puzzles and so on. They prefer any number of other games or activities that are enjoyed at home. Boys in particular need to be physically engaged and take much longer to adapt to more sedentary tasks. They may not want to concentrate on the teaching events, listen to stories sitting quietly in a circle, or follow the teacher’s instructions.

Check his concentration

You can check whether your child can concentrate by giving him something to do which he enjoys doing, and which takes concentration. If your child can pay attention to the activity for at least five minutes you will know he can concentrate (and sit still). It’s important to emphasise that if someone can concentrate in one situation, then the problem is not an inability to concentrate. If your child’s attention wanders before the five minutes have passed, maybe he does need your help. The nature of the help will depend on your assessment of the situation so let’s consider some relevant points.

1. Have realistic expectations. Some children seem to be able to concentrate better than others. If you compare one child to others, you may be unrealistic in terms of what he can and can’t do. Instead, compare what your child is doing this week with what he was doing last week; how he behaved when he went to bed last night; how he played with other children at school compared with how he plays with them at home. When you focus on your individual child and notice changes in his behaviour, it helps avoid becoming trapped into thinking that your child has a problem simply because he’s different from others.

2. Avoid using checklists. Checklists can convince you that your child has a serious problem because they can be so all inclusive that parents or teachers will find something on the list that applies to that child. They make you feel they are describing unusual behavior but often they are only describing things that every child will do sometimes. Checklists for ADHD can include the following questions:

• Does your child forget instructions?
• Does your child have a short temper?
• Does your child fidget?
• Does your child constantly ask questions?
• Does your child leave his bedroom untidy?
• Does your child produce messy work?
• Etc.

Doesn’t this look like a list of the stages that all children go through and outgrow?

3. Does your child know how to pay attention? Some children will seem to pay attention automatically. However, every child learns differently and for some, the ability to attend doesn’t come naturally. They need help in learning to concentrate and the good news is that concentration can be taught. For children to learn concentration, they must be given responsibility, must feel that their contribution to family life matters and must have the chance gradually to develop the skills everyone needs in order to be able to function successfully.

4. Does your child only pay attention when it suits him? The reason for this may be because what he should be doing is: too difficult, too boring, too tedious or not clearly understood. The child will simply try to get out of something he doesn’t want to do or feels incapable of doing. This avoidance behavior needs investigating and a good place to start is to find out whether or not he understands how to learn or how to approach the task given. If children are not expected to learn to do things at home, they may struggle to learn at school. Setting the dining table is a good example of an age-appropriate task that can be used to teach a young child to learn. It’s a simple everyday activity but it needs a system. While busy, your child will have to keep thinking until the job is done. Having chores to do at home are good learning opportunities that have unexpected spin-offs!

What to do?

If reports from school concern you, don’t ignore them but don’t overreact either. First do your own assessment of the situation and then, if need be, find a helping professional that will look holistically at the situation. While most of the younger boys suspected of having ‘ADHD’ will not need intervention, some might well benefit from help. Unusual behaviours can have many different causes – which is why ILT practitioners are taught to consider all possibilities. The website www.ilt.co.za contains more information and sources of help.

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For Parents and Teachers
Helping your child make friends
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

Many children face changes at the beginning of a new year. If they are starting at a new school, or changing classes at their previous one, it means that they may be faced by the challenge of making new friends.

Is it important to have friends?

The simple answer is yes! Cretchen Geng and Phillip Slee are involved in researching young people's well-being and guiding schools on how to talk about mental health. They confirm that having good, lasting friendships is very important for children's health, development and well-being.

Some children find it harder to make friends than others. If your child is shy or introverted they may find it hard to meet new people.

They need to know that it is OK not to be friends with everyone. They don't have to make ten best friends all at once! Making friends takes time and even just one or two good friends can make a big difference.

To break the ice, encourage simple actions such as saying "hello" or offering a compliment: "That's a cool backpack," or “I like your watch.”

Help your child find activities to do with other children that they enjoy. These doesn’t have to involve formal sports but can be playing a game, doing a craft, dancing or reading. Tell them how it's possible to be friends with lots of different kinds of people.

Talk about the importance of friendship

Glen and Slee write that research shows it's important for parents to offer encouragement and guidance about friendships. This can lead to better quality friendships (how well friends get along) as children grow up.

Parents can start to talk to their child about the importance of friendships from a young age. Some questions parents could ask include "Who did you play with today?" "What did you like about playing with them?" and "What games did you play."

Parents can also start conversations about the value of friends and friendship. For example, parents could ask their child about the importance of sharing with friends ("it actually feels great to share and make your friends happy").

Encourage your child to talk

Over time, children's concept of friendships changes. Younger children view friends as somebody you can play with, while older children see friends as people they can trust and can share emotions and thoughts with.

Research shows that parents can also help this transition with advice and encouragement. Encourage your child to express their feelings and talk about what happens at school, so you can work through any issues or tricky things together.

This does not have to be a formal talk. You could chat while you are doing something else—like drawing, playing chess or throwing a ball.

To create a safe space for your child to freely express their feelings and emotions, avoid being judgmental or critical. Instead, ask questions, like "if you do it again, will you do it differently?" or "was that a kind decision?"

Encourage active listening

You can also encourage your child to be a good and supportive friend.

One way to do this is by being an active listener. This is about understanding what someone is saying (and possibly taking action because of it), not simply "hearing" what is said.
You can suggest your child takes a deep breath and lets the other child finish what they are trying to say, instead of interrupting and talking over people.

Active listening is a skill parents can practice with their child. Make a game and have fun doing it. Try it in the car, over the dinner table or in another informal setting.

Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) strives to uncover the root causes of puzzling behaviours and learning difficulties in children. Visit the website www.ilt.co.za to learn more about this approach.

We list practitioners near you to help as well as the accredited courses we offer parents, teachers and other helping professionals to become more knowledgeable about brain development and what might go wrong.

Teachers earn 15 TCPD points for successful completion of the course as well as credits from ETDP-SETA for further studies in Special Needs Education. Parents are also credited with ETDP-SETA and so ILT can be a pathway to further academic study.

ILT 1 courses are available as attendance or by correspondence. Details are on the website but you are welcome to contact us at ilt.icon.co.za.

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Provided by The Conversation
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For parents and teachers
What books are best for a growing vocabulary?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

In summary, less is more when it comes to helping young children learn new vocabulary.

Most books today are flooded with colourful pictures. The reason for this is to entice adults to buy the books. However,a recent study by psychologists at the University of Sussex shows that having more than one illustration per page results in poorer word learning among pre-schoolers.

The findings, published in Infant and Child Development, present a simple solution to parents and nursery teachers for some of the challenges of pre-school education and could help in the development of learning materials for young children.

Researcher Zoe Flack said: "Luckily, children like hearing stories, and adults like reading them to children. But children who are too young to read themselves don't know where to look because they are not following the text. This has a dramatic impact on how well they learn new words from stories."

The researchers read storybooks to three-year-olds with one illustration at a time (the right-hand page was illustrated, the left-hand page was blank) or with two illustrations at a time (both pages had illustrations), with illustrations introducing the child to new objects that were named on the page.

They found that children who were read stories with only one illustration at a time learned twice as many words as children who were read stories with two or more illustrations.
In a follow-up experiment, researchers added a simple hand swipe gesture to guide the children to look at the correct illustration before the page was read to them. They found this gesture was effective in helping children to learn words when they saw two illustrations across the page.

Zoe, who has written a blog post about the research, said: "This suggests that simply guiding children's attention to the correct page helps them focus on the right illustrations, and this in turn might help them concentrate on the new words.

"Our findings fit well with Cognitive Load Theory, which suggests that learning rates are affected by how complicated a task is. In this case, by giving children less information at once, or guiding them to the correct information, we can help children learn more words."

Co-author Dr Jessica Horst, said: "Other studies have shown that adding 'bells and whistles' to storybooks like flaps to lift and anthropomorphic animals decreases learning. But this is the first study to examine how decreasing the number of illustrations increases children's word learning from storybooks."

She added: "This study also has important implications for the e-Book industry. Studies on the usefulness of teaching vocabulary from e-Books are mixed, but our study suggests one explanation is that many studies with e-Books are only presenting one illustration at a time."

The study is one of many being carried out at Sussex in The WORD Lab, a research group that focuses on how children learn and acquire language. Previous research has shown children learn more words from hearing the same stories repeated and from hearing stories at nap time.

Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) strives to help children realise their potential and to uncover the causes of learning difficulties and puzzling behaviour. Visit our website www.ilt.co.za to find out more about this approach. We list practitioners available around the country to offer help to struggling children. We also offer accredited courses for teachers and parents to help empower with knowledge of how the brain develops, what is needed for efficient learning and what to do when things go wrong. Teachers can earn CPD points and get credits with SAQA for further qualifications for successfully completing our courses.

We continue to honour our promise to offer the ILT 1 correspondence course at a 25% discount as long as Lockdown lasts. You are welcome to get further details at info.ilt.co.za.