Why You Should Care that ADHD is Still Under-recognized as a Serious Learning Risk

Have you heard about CADDAC’s ADHD Education campaign, ADHD Right to Learn?

Are you wondering why you should take a few minutes to contact your elected official and your Minister of Education?

Here’s Why

Elected officials believe that you, their constituents, do not care about ADHD and therefore question why they should care. We need to prove them wrong!

An e-mail or tweet from you will let them know that you do care that children with ADHD receive the special education support they need. 

Your elected officials and your Ministry of Education need to be informed that:

• over the past several decades ADHD research has made it abundantly clear that ADHD significantly impairs learning, however most education systems have yet to change how they understand and support students with ADHD;
• educators are still receiving inadequate training on ADHD and appropriate teaching strategies;
• many educators falsely believe that medication alone will improve academic outcomes for students with ADHD, or even worse, that students with ADHD are simply lazy or wilful;
• while most educators understand ADHD as an impairment in inattention few recognize ADHD as the disorder in self-regulation that it is, resulting in many students with ADHD being punished for their disability;
• ministry and school board’s direct or indirect messaging to educators and the public that ADHD is not a serious a learning risk on par with other more recognized neurodevelopmental disabilities is discriminatory; and
• Ontario and British Columbia still do not recognize students with ADHD as having the same right to special education resources as students with other neurodevelopmental disabilities.