FOCUSING ON BIGGER GOALS

JANET D. MATAWARAN

Children with attention deficit disorders cannot function well without, let’s say, a coach which would help them direct thinking and cognitive abilities toward setting goals and planning to achieve them.

On their own, they cannot establish priorities, stay organized, focus their attention on the task at hand or accomplish their goals. Children who have this disability are impulsive, have an abundance of movement, and difficulty following instructions.

They lack the initiation to get started on classroom work and assignments, and maintain focus on learning tasks for the duration required to complete them.

They also do not possess cognitive flexibility or the ability to recognize when it may be useful to adjust one’s thinking and action based on new information.

What can educators do to help these kids? They can actually be taught to develop their executive functioning to become more successful self-directed l ear n er s.

Students with learning challenges can benefit from explicit instruction about executive function and how to improve it, and can benefit the most from learning to consciously direct their “scattered minds.”

Helping them develop executive function result to students being better prepared to improve their performance in school. Classroom management issues can be reduced also by teaching these students strategies to avoid distractions.

Students who have poor impulse control need additional adult support. This can be done through teaching them a strategy about ways to overcome habits like blurting out an answer without thinking, or behaving in ways that distract other students.

Initiative, which is the readiness and skill in taking action, applies many aspects of executive function to maximum impact in school, work, and life. Teachers should help students develop initiative, and guide them to establish their clear intent for a learning project as the first step in setting out a concrete plan to complete the task.

Students should be taught to map their options, and encourage them to surround it with two or more solutions. Mapping reinforces that there is often more than one way to solve a problem.

Each little success along the way, telling them they have done a good job for every accomplished goal, can help keep students be more focused on the bigger goals. — oOo— The author is Teacher III at Dolores Elementary School