If you’ve ever noticed your child coming home from school feeling moody, withdrawn, or simply wiped out, you’re in good company. For kids with ADHD, after-school restraint collapse is a frequent experience. But what does it really mean?
What is Restraint Collapse?
After a full day at school, many children with ADHD experience what’s known as “restraint collapse.” This is when they’ve exhausted their self-control, focus, and emotional resources to hold it together throughout the day. Hours spent sitting, listening, and managing social interactions can leave them mentally drained by the time they return home. When they finally step through the door, the pressure is off—and all that stored tension often surfaces as a meltdown or shutdown.
Why Your Child’s Quietness or Irritability Isn’t Defiance
It’s important to remember that if your child seems distant or doesn’t immediately respond after school, it’s not a sign of defiance or lack of care. They’re simply depleted. Their brain needs a break after so much effort managing impulses and emotions all day. Taking their behavior personally can lead to unnecessary stress, but a few small adjustments can help you meet them where they are.
Ways to Support Your Child After School
Here are some helpful approaches to ease your child’s transition into their after-school routine:
Greet Them with Warmth 🥰
Sometimes, what your child needs most is a warm connection. Welcome them with a smile or a hug, showing you’re happy they’re home. This simple gesture can help them feel secure and understood.
Give Them Space to Unwind ⏳
Children with ADHD often need a moment to relax after a busy day. Instead of immediately asking about homework or their day, allow them some quiet time. This could mean alone time in their room or a calming activity they enjoy. This break helps them reset.
Use Visual Cues Instead of Questions 👀
Kids with ADHD can feel overloaded when asked to handle multiple requests. Instead of a string of questions or verbal reminders, try using a visual checklist or other reminders. Visual cues are less stressful and allow them to stay on track without relying entirely on memory.
Provide a Snack and Drink 🍎🥤
A little nourishment can go a long way. Offering a healthy snack and some water after school can improve their mood and energy, making the transition into the evening a little easier. Try the “three-bite rule” - three bites of protein every few hours. Protein helps to stabilize blood sugar (and mood).
Encourage Movement and Play 🏃♂️
After a full day of managing their behavior, children with ADHD often need an outlet for their stored-up energy. Encourage them to play, run around, or engage in a physical activity they love to help them reset their focus and mood.
The Key: Patience and Understanding
Supporting your child through after-school restraint collapse requires empathy and patience. Remember, their non-responsiveness or moodiness isn’t about you—it’s their way of recovering from a demanding day. By offering comfort, space, and a little time, you’re helping them recharge in a safe environment.
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Children can lose up to 40% of the learning gains they have made over the school year if stimulating learning opportunities halt over the summer months. There’s extensive neuroscience research evidence that taking an extended break from learning during the summer can impact students’ retention and engagement for the next school year according to research published in the American Educational Research Journal.
“But we need a break!” I hear you. Many students and parents are counting the days until summer vacation for a well-deserved break. It’s a great time to rest, rejuvenate, and hit the reset button. It’s also the perfect opportunity to apply the tools and strategies learned during the academic year to carry out non-academic tasks, significantly contributing to building a child’s essential executive functioning skills toolkit.
What are executive skills, and why are they important?
We rely on our executive functions in our daily lives, from planning our day to remembering to pack our lunch or mapping out our next road trip. They are developmental in nature and are housed in the brain’s ‘management department’ and are essential contributors to tasks being carried out and completed. Adults often take these learned skills for granted, assuming children will “naturally learn” how to organize, stay focused, persist, prepare, and plan.
However, for a child with ADHD, lagging executive skills are inevitable and can be the root cause of stress, anxiety, shame and frustration at home and school. A youngster with an ADHD diagnosis can delay their executive function skill acquisition by up to 30%.
Youngsters with weak executive skills can be disorganized and forgetful, need help getting started on assignments and easily get distracted from non-preferred tasks. They can also experience challenges regulating their emotions due to frustration and overwhelm. However, the good news is that these skills can be taught, learned, and practiced in both formal and informal situations. With patience, practice, persistence and, most importantly, positivity, adults can foster the development of these essential skills in their children.
What can parents and caregivers do to help develop these skills?
Learning is a habit. Training one’s brain and keeping it active and strengthened is just like keeping one’s physical body in shape. You need to keep at it consistently to see noticeable results! Anyone who has taken two months off from the gym knows what I am talking about. The brain is no different.
But don’t worry, you don’t need to convince your young person to bury themselves in textbooks and rigorous online academic classes to stop them from falling behind over the summer break. Instead, consider providing your youngster with real-life opportunities to build and reinforce their essential executive functioning skills over school breaks.
Here are a few simple ideas that our students and parents find especially helpful and fun!
The more consistent we are with helping our students build executive function skills year-round, the more success the student will experience. Consistency with new habits is a crucial element to transformations in behaviour. When we are consistent in building these skills, we see momentum leading to healthy life-long habits. By actively avoiding the summer brain drain with naturally engaging opportunities, you will be surprised how prepared and confident your child will feel for future learning and life.
About Samantha, Founder, Kaizen Education Services
Over 25 years ago, Samantha Woods, Founder of Kaizen Education Services, recognized that her students’ success in life goes well beyond intelligence and academic skills. After taking a neuroscience research hiatus, Samantha discovered that lagging executive functioning skills were at the root of many of her ADHD students’ challenges. Since then, she has developed a successful executive skills coaching program for students and adults who live with an ADHD diagnosis and recognize that building these invaluable skills can lead to a lifetime of success and peace. Samantha now spends her time presenting and sharing research based practical tools & strategies with educators, parents and anyone invested in making good change (Kai-zen) happen with a young person in their life. Her latest passion is building Kaizen’s “Brain Hub Academy,” an online digital ADHD coaching platform to strategically teach these essential skills to students of all ages across the world.
Kaizen Education Services is a social enterprise focusing on executive brain functioning development from the classroom to the boardroom. Kaizen is currently transforming their in-person executive skills coaching program to a digital platform so more adults can feel empowered to support the young people in their lives.
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who has sent an e-mail or tweet to their elected official through CADDAC’s online advocacy campaign. To-date, 178 e-mails have been sent through our Ontario campaign and 289 through our national campaign as well as countless tweets. More are being added every day. A special thanks to those of you who have taken the extra time to share your personal thoughts and stories in the e-mails to your elected officials. It is these personalized e-mails that touch politicians the most.
I would also like to encourage those of you who have not yet contacted your elected official and Minister of Education through this quick and easy tool, to please do so. Since CADDAC has a newsletter following of over six thousand, we sincerely hope to see many more e-mails sent.
I would also like to encourage all of you to share this information with your contact lists. Please access E-mail text to share, which will provide you with an e-mail to send to your friends, family and colleagues. Until those in a decision-making position, understand that their constituents actually do care about students with ADHD, things will remain the same.
At the launch of this campaign CADDAC reached out to every Ministry of Education across Canada except for Quebec. CADDAC is in the process of hiring a bilingual employee and is searching for Quebec partners to assist us in advocacy efforts in that province.
To-date six of the twelve ministries contacted have replied to our e-mail, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, North West Territories, Yukon, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. Of these all six have agreed to meet. We have already met with representatives of the Ministry of Nova Scotia and have meetings booked with the Ministries of North West Territories, Manitoba, Saskatchewan. We are waiting for the meeting times to be set for Ontario and Yukon.
During our calls we expect to discuss ways in which Ministries can improve teacher training in ADHD, ensure that students with ADHD are receiving the resources they require and increase ADHD information on ministry web sites and other platforms to ensure that ADHD is recognized as a serious learning risk. In addition, during these calls we are gathering information on the unique process each province uses to flag students with special needs, when and how they develop individual learning plans for these students and how students with ADHD fare in their process. We are also asking about the role of parents in developing individual education plans.
Due to a media release sent out on January the 21st four media interviews occurred. Interviews with Global News Radio 900 CHML Hamilton, CBC Vancouver, CHEK News Victoria, and a free lance journalist in Alberta resulted in news stories and a live news radio interview.
When our Ministry meetings are completed CADDAC will send out another media release summarizing the meetings and comparing provincial supports for students with ADHD.
CADDAC has also sent out a request to ADHD medical professionals and ADHD support groups across Canada asking that they share the ADHD Right to Learn campaign information far and wide.
Please take a few minutes to help us advocate for students with ADHD across Canada by sending an e-mail or tweet to your elected official and passing on the ADHD Right to Learn campaign information.
Warm regards,
Heidi Bernhardt
CADDAC Founder and Director or Education and Advocacy
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:
During CADDAC’s recent online conference I presented on school advocacy. At the end of the presentation many of the questions were let unanswered or briefly answered. Since many of these questions are common questions that CADDAC receives, I will be sharing the answers to these questions in several blog posts over the next few months.
Written by Heidi Bernhardt R.N.
Question 2
Will my Child with ADHD Receive an Individual Education Plan?
Please note that IEPs or Individual Education Plans are known as SEPs, IPPs, SSPs, and ISSPs in some provinces.
These are a sample of questions I received during my recent online CADDAC presentation on school advocacy.
Questions
“We had a child psychologist do an assessment on her and she was diagnosed with ADHD. The school has the report. The principal said that ADHD doesn't get an IEP!?!?!?”
"The identification system can block a student with ADHD from receiving services if ADHD does not fit into a designated category - what are the possible designated categories for ADHD in ON?”
“I was told by my daughter's principal (in the Thames Valley District School Board) that she didn't qualify to get an IEP because ADHD doesn't get an IEP. Is this accurate?”
“I have same issue - does not qualify for IEP - West Vancouver School District (BC).”
The short and very confusing answer is that it depends on which province you are in, the board and school your child is in and the good will and ADHD knowledge level of the principal and teachers in your child’s school.
Summary of Special Education Systems in Canada and ADHD
This is a brief summary of the current situation across our provinces to help you understand your province’s system in context of all Canadian special education systems.
Access post-secondary for information on the right to accommodations in this environment.
If you currently reside in British Columbia, your child will most likely not have access to an IEP unless they have another disability that fits into one of BCs special needs categories. While BC’s Special Education Guidelines state that “ Individual Education Plan Order M638/95: sets out the requirements for school boards to design and implement individual education plans for students with special needs,” they define a student with special needs as: "A student who has a disability of an intellectual, physical, sensory, emotional or behavioural nature, has a learning disability or has special gifts or talents, as defined in the Manual of Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines, Section E.” The fact that ADHD does not fit into one of the defined categories is used to disqualify a student with ADHD from receiving an IEP. BC has indicated their intent to move to an inclusion system of identification but have not done so at this time.
Ontario has a similar system of identification using five defined categories, behaviour, intellect, communication, physical and multiple. ADHD does not fit into the criteria, or definition, of any of these categories. Therefore, schools and boards have been able to use this fact to refuse officially identifying students with ADHD as special needs students through an IPRC, or identification, placement, review committee. In December of 2011 a Ministry Memorandum explained that a student with ADHD could be identified under any category if they have a “demonstrable learning needs”. Unfortunately, this term left room for interpretation because shortly thereafter the Ministry agreed that schools and boards have the right to set the level of impairment that would qualify a student for the designation where they see fit.
So, does a student in Ontario have the right to an IEP if they have an ADHD disability related need? The Ontario Human Rights Commission certainly believes that they have a right to accommodations and states that the Ministry leaves itself open to litigation if a student with ADHD is denied accommodations and support due to the categories of exceptionality. Access this blog for more details.
What is currently occurring in Ontario around this issue is total inconsistency across boards and even within the same board. The TDSB has stated that a student with ADHD may receive an IEP, if they are impaired, but will not allow an IPRC. This leaves the implementation of an IEP at the school’s discretion and also allows it to be pulled at the school’s discretion. Other boards seem to be accepting the Memorandum’s guidance and being more open to formally identifying students with ADHD. And other boards continue to refuse IEPs for students with ADHD. In our experience, one of the greatest indicators as to whether a student with ADHD will receive an IEP and/or special education services and accommodations in Ontario is the principal and teacher’s knowledge level of ADHD.
For the other provinces who do recognize ADHD in a category or use a system of inclusion that does not require recognition under a category the implementation of an IEP is also hit and miss. As indicated previously, a great deal depends on how the educators working with your child interpret what they see as impairments caused by a disability. This is what will trigger more investigation and medical documentation to substantiate an exceptional learning need.
My advice to all parents across the country seeking support for their children with ADHD in our schools is to document your child’s impairments and struggles in as many ways possible. Gather medical documentation as well as examples of: academic marks and comments, work product, excess time or assistance required to complete assignments and tasks, and behaviour and social issues that are impairing your child. Do this even if your child is doing “alright” academically. Just because a child is bright and not failing does not mean they do not have a disability that required support and accommodations. It will then be up to you to use this documentation to convince your child’s principal that he/she is impaired to a level that warrants support. If your child is still being denied an IEP, I suggest that you move up the chain of command and speak with your board’s superintendent, preferably one for special education, but not all boards have this position. If you are in Ontario, I also suggest that you take advantage of the language on page 13 of Policy on accessible education for students with disabilities when speaking with your boards if they are continuing to deny access to an IEP.
Once your child has received an IEP please know that you, as a parent, have the right to assist in the development of the IEP. Use CADDAC Accommodations Charts to assist you in this process.
Please feel free to reach out to me (heidi.bernhardt@caddac.ca) to report on your progress. I am very interested in being informed about the ongoing struggles to access support for students with ADHD.
Once you receive an IEP for your child, holding schools accountable for the implementation of an IEP is a whole other issue, but that will require another blog post, stay tuned.
If these issues are of concern to you, please stay tuned for our education advocacy campaign “ADHD Right to Learn” being launched soon.
We need all of your voices to help us effect change!
During CADDAC’s recent online conference I presented on school advocacy. At the end of the presentation many of the questions were let unanswered or briefly answered. Since many of these questions are common questions that CADDAC receives, I will be sharing the answers to these questions in several blog posts over the next few months.
Written by Heidi Bernhardt R.N.
Question 1
If one wants to consider a private school or another public school can you suggest any specific school types (Montessori, outdoor, etc.) that have a great history with ADHD kids?
This is a question that we receive frequently and unfortunately there is no easy answer. Yes, there are some individual schools (as well as some public schools) that demonstrate expertise in teaching neurodiverse kids, but they don’t fit into any one category or type of school. My advice to parents when looking at private schools, or considering changing public schools is to first learn as much as you can about how ADHD impairs learning, executive functioning and self and emotional regulation. Then build a profile for your individual child, outline their strengths and needs, and define where they are struggling. After that, research appropriate teaching strategies and classroom accommodations to assist with these impairments. Use CADDAC webinars, classroom accommodation charts and Teach ADHD Charts to do so.
Once you are informed, visit the schools you are considering in person and assess the environment. Is it somewhere your child would feel welcome and comfortable? Then, sit down with the administration for an in-depth conversation. Have them explain their understanding of ADHD. Do they develop IEPs? Ask them how they educate their staff about all neurodevelopmental disorders, their impact on learning and the appropriate teaching strategies and classroom accommodations. How do they evaluate their teachers’ knowledge and understanding of this information and their success in applying these skills?
At the end of these questions I would suggest you describe some specific scenarios that your child has experienced at school. Ask how they would react and solve these situations? How would they deal with a child that is not handing in assignments or a child that is reluctant to try new things? How about a situation were a child has reacted badly when triggered? This will allow you to get a good understanding about their knowledge level of ADHD and how they might handle situations that commonly occur with your child.
Unfortunately, I have spoken to many parents who have reported that although their private school spoke about understanding self-regulation issues during the interview, in practice, they were far better at working with children’s academic difficulties than dealing with what they saw as behavioural outbursts. They were often reactive rather than proactive during these situations and handled them much the same as the public system.
Written by Heidi Bernhardt R.N.
During this year’s ADHD Awareness Month’s Campaign CADDAC shared ADHD facts from peer reviewed research. Our media release and bus shelter posters stated that ADHD is a serious mental health disorder that can significantly impact one’s mental health as well as physical health. Consequently, a few followers shared that they found the messages too negative. They would have preferred more positive messaging, fun facts about ADHD and more comments on individuality and neurodiversity. As a mother, grandmother and spouse of someone with ADHD I can certainly understand these feelings. We want others to recognize the individuality, strengths and other wonderful traits of our kids and family members with ADHD and not just the down side.
One of our Facebook contributors suggested that it would be beneficial for CADDAC to let people know why we think people should know these facts and what CADDAC’s next steps are after this campaign and bus shelter advertisement. I though these were very insightful questions that should have been addressed earlier, so here goes.
Unfortunately, medical research data by its very nature always removes individuality. It looks for commonality, raw data and percentages that can be used to draw conclusions. I remember when I first found out that ADHD was a part of our family, about thirty years ago, I read medical texts written for clinicians because little else was available. Even with a background in psychiatric nursing I found these extremely depressing. Most of the research data made it sound like my child was heading for a life of failure, unfortunately that has not changed much. After working closely with ADHD experts through CADDRA while building CADDAC I quickly realized that ADHD information, even if basically the same, should most often be nuanced according to the audience.
But here’s the rub. If we don’t share the negative facts about ADHD openly and bluntly, ADHD will never be recognized as something that requires society’s attention. We still lack resources for assessment and treatment nation wide. Access to multimodal treatments, even when strongly backed by research, are costly and difficult to access. Many students with ADHD across Canada are still unable to access the supports they deserve in order to reach their potential. Employers still do not understand that ADHD is actually a medical disability and similar to depression should allow the right to accommodations.
We at CADDAC also find it hugely concerning that: large mental health organizations still offer very little information about ADHD; many mental health centres still do not treat ADHD; many medical professionals still know little about ADHD and those that do often charge over provincial coverage to diagnose it; and large mental health awareness campaigns still do not include ADHD in their messaging.
Almost on a daily basis CADDAC is reminded that our decision makers and elected officials do not understand the serious consequences of ignoring ADHD. They really don’t think about ADHD at all because they believe that ADHD is of no interest to their constituents. You see, their constituents do not speak to them about ADHD unlike parents of children with Autism.
So, this year CADDAC chose to put out some hard facts about ADHD. Through our ADHD Speaks campaign this October, ADHD Awareness Month, we are asking that people share those hard facts with their elected officials or others that needed to be educated on ADHD.
We ask you, our followers, to stay tuned as we further expand our online advocacy campaigns this fall and into 2021. We plan to highlight specific advocacy asks in each campaign and will be requesting those personally or professionally impacted by ADHD to help us inform our elected officials that their constituents actually do care about ADHD.
Warm Regards,
Heidi Bernhardt
Written by Heidi Bernhardt R.N.
Click here to download the blog in PDF format.
What exactly is this new “quadmester” system?
Instead of two semesters there will be four semesters in this 2020/2021 school year in Ontario. Two subjects will be taken per semester with each semester lasting approximately ten weeks. Students may choose in school learning or remote learning before each quadmester. If students choose in- class learning versus complete remote learning, they will be in school for approximately 2.5 hours per day, two days out of five one week and three out of five the next week. After their in-class sessions they will be expected to complete their day learning online. The days of the week that they are not in school will be spent in online learning.
How might these changes impact our students with ADHD?
There may be a slight benefit for students with ADHD in this quadmester system because they will only need to focus on two courses at a time, rather than four. This means less juggling of multiple assignments, which is a challenge for many students with ADHD and executive functioning impairments. A more concentrated learning schedule will require a faster moving curriculum which depending on the student may be a benefit or drawback. Some students will find it difficult to keep pace requiring additional time to process and integrate new concepts. Others with ADHD who find classes too slow and boring may actually do better when classes move at a quicker pace. However, this faster pace will mean that if a student misses a day or two due to illness, they will most likely become overwhelmed fearing that they will never be able to catch up.
For most students with ADHD the expectation that they sit and listen to lecture style teaching for extended periods of time with minimal breaks will cause a problem. In addition, many of our students need to move frequently which will undoubtedly be even more restricted than usual. This will further reduce their attentional capabilities and may lead to more shifting of position, tapping, squirming etc., causing them to be unintentionally more disruptive. Also, the new schedule of moving from in-class learning to online learning at the end of the day and through the week will be difficult for students with ADHD. Consistency of routine is a necessity for those with ADHD.
Tips for students with ADHD and their parents on navigating this new quadmester system.
Written by Heidi Bernhardt R.N.
Click here to download the blog in PDF format.
All students returning to school this fall will be forced to navigate a new reality, but students struggling with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disabilities will be exceptionally challenged. The skills that ADHD impairs such as the regulation of attention, activity, impulse, behaviour and emotion, as well as executive function are the very skills that will be challenged in this new environment.
Schools will be expecting children with self regulation and impulsivity issues, as well as impaired skills in remembering routines, planning, organization, and social interaction to follow complex instructions on what they should and should not do. Those in higher grades will also be expected to understand and follow new and varied schedules and conquer online learning with what looks like few additional resources. This new and confusing environment along with the added load on these students’ impaired skills will cause them increased stress resulting in more behavioural and academic issues.
Anticipating this, parents are concerned. In some provinces they are being asked to make a decision about their child’s return to school with limited information. Parents want to know if their child will be provided additional support to ensure their safety. They wonder if their child will be offered additional understanding for their impairments, or be reprimanded, consequenced and ultimately excluded from their classrooms when their impairments prove too great? Of course, they hope for the latter, but some parents who have already experienced their school’s lack of understanding of ADHD impairments along with insufficient supports are rightly concerned. Their concern is so great that some parents are choosing to keep their children home. Some without the resources to do so, or others knowing that their child requires the routine and social interaction only school can provide, are opting to send their children and adolescents into the unknown.
What can parents do to help mitigate this unknown?
What you can do to assist your child transitioning into this challenging environment?
Once you have obtained the information about the environment and situation your child will be entering, take steps to prepare them as much as possible.
Prepare the school
Meet with the school to:
The decisions made during any meeting should be followed up with a written summary. If this does not come from the school follow up with an e-mail to the principal listing the things that were agreed to in the meeting and when you expect them to be implemented. In this e-mail propose a date for a follow-up meeting to review how the strategies are working and if they need to be revised.
Autism disorder commonly coexists with ADHD with 20-50% of children with ADHD meeting the diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder, (ASD). Even when symptom levels do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of Autism, we often see common symptoms of Autism present in children with ADHD. ADHD on the other hand is the most common coexisting disorder in children with Autism, 30-80% of ASD children meet the criteria for ADHD.
Research on this significant co-existence led the American Academy of Psychiatrists to revise their guidelines. Prior to 2013 physicians were not allowed to diagnose both disorders in the same child, however the new DSM 5 guidelines now allow for the dual diagnose ADHD and Autism.
More Facts:
Some researchers have been pondering whether these two disorders might possibly be the same disorder with different presentations, but research to-date has been inconclusive. Genetic studies show some similarities, but brain imaging indicates both differences and similarities. Researchers are also questioning whether similar appearing impairments seen in the two disorders, such as attention dysregulation, may actually be caused for two different reasons.
At the same time, other researchers are pondering if we should be looking at a different way to think about mental and neurological disorders altogether. Rather then looking at the disorders through their diagnostic labels, we should be conducting joint studies looking at ways to categorize under common traits. An example is a study by the POND Network in Ontario, which looked at the inability of study participants with Autism, ADHD and OCD to read other people’s emotions by looking at their eyes. This has generally been thought to be an Autism trait, but researchers found the same inability in participants with ADHD. Therefore, children with ADHD would also struggle with impaired social functioning. Knowing this would greatly assist in initiating appropriate supports.
One of the most important things we need to understand as parents of children with ADHD is our child’s unique profile. When we understand their individual set of strengths and impairments, rather than just a generalized list of ADHD symptoms, we can put appropriate supports and accommodations in place and make knowledgeable decisions about appropriate treatments. With the overlap of these two disorders many children with ADHD will also present with traits seen in Autism, even when they do not meet diagnostic criteria. Only after my grandson was diagnosed with dual ADHD and Autism, did I delve into the world of Autism literature more deeply. I was surprised how much this also assisted me in understanding some of those “more unique” traits of two of my three sons with ADHD.
Another reason to understand the interplay of these two disorders is for the purpose of school advocacy. Although many of the learning and self-regulation impairments that students with ADHD experience are very similar to those of students with Autism, ADHD is not included in the categories of exceptionality in Ontario, British Columbia or Quebec. Ministries of Education use these categories to define students with special learning needs and approve additional resources. Therefore, students with ADHD although also impaired do not qualify due to their specific diagnosis. In a past blog post CADDAC summarized a recent Ontario Human Right Commission’s paper addressing this issue.
The situation has become so bad that physicians report parents coming to them asking for a diagnosis of Autism rather than ADHD because they know that this will get their child access to learning resources that these kids desperately need. Of course, this is not a discretionary choice on a physician’s part, but how sad that it has come to this.
Perhaps we all need to do a better job of educating our elected officials and Ministries of Education on the research and how greatly these two disorders actually overlap.
For more information please access these resources
