The search for good education can be daunting for a student with ADHD. I was once one of those students. I was the kid standing up in the middle of a class in 4th grade and randomly walking to the corner. I would be doing a worksheet or trying to read a passage when something out the window caught my eye and I was suddenly unable to look at anything else.
I grew up in a time where ADHD and the like were not talked about out loud or really understood, and many young students like me did not have the support we needed for our unique way of learning. But I am happy now that times are changing; there are so much more resources available to the average parent than there used to be, and it has never been easier to become educated on how to support an ADHD learner. One of those resources that has become more available is undoubtedly online private tutoring.
For many years now, we've known that long-term, individualized educational support makes real differences in student outcomes. Simply put, students who get ongoing tutoring get better grades, retain more information, and are more prepared graduating from grade to grade. And though the research is still young, there is growing evidence that one-on-one tutoring is effective in supporting students with ADHD. There have also been huge advancements in distance and remote learning since the COVID-19 pandemic which make tutoring more accessible than ever.
That being said, some parents may have doubts about whether ongoing online tutoring makes sense for a student with ADHD. This article exists to answer those doubts and provide guidance for how online tutoring can be successfully adapted for the student with ADHD.
How can tutors support students with ADHD effectively?
It's no secret that students with ADHD need an individualized approach, and tutors should be familiar with classroom behavior management in order to be a fit for such a student. Thankfully, these basics are not hard to understand, and a quick list of “best practices” can be practiced easily by any tutor or parent. I have learned these from professional sources, such as from the Center for Disease Control, and through my own experience.
- Talk honestly with the student about what they find distracting and what they do to help them concentrate. Do not assume that certain actions are an inherent sign of a lack of focus (fidgeting, for example; I know personally that I need to be moving my hands and glancing at other things or else I can't concentrate).
- Be as clear as possible when transitioning topics. Use clear audio and visual cues so that the student can re-anchor their focus.
- Incorporate hands-on student participation. Students with ADHD tend to have working and short-term memories that struggle to keep up with traditional schooling. Letting the student talk, work physically, take the class at their own pace, and otherwise have the class center around them can help strengthen memories of the lesson.
- Combine audio and visual materials. Some students with ADHD have auditory processing problems. Writing down questions and answers as they are spoken and having diverse visuals gives students with ADHD multiple ways of understanding the lesson.
- Repeat information often. For some, asking for the teacher to repeat themselves, especially something they just said, is a sign that the student isn't caring enough about the class. But for the student with ADHD, repetition can make the difference between a successful class and an unsuccessful one.
- Shorten tasks. This doesn't mean “dumb down” an activity, but rather to segment them into multiple. For example, take something that might usually take 12 minutes and turn it into multiple 4 minute tasks.
- Allow for frequent breaks. For students with ADHD, uninterrupted schooling can quickly become exhausting. This should not be seen as a sign of weakness; instead, it is a reality of how students with ADHD learn.
- Use different technologies and ways of doing assignments. Speech-to-text can help students with ADHD who struggle with writing because of fatigue. Allow the student to switch between writing with pen and paper and typing depending on what is most comfortable.
But would these still work in online tutoring?
Online tutoring can bestereotyped as inferior, where students and instructors don't make the important social connections that make classes successful. These opinions certainly have been severely shaped by negative experiences during the height of COVID-19 and school lockdowns almost 6 years ago.
But in this area there have also been great advancements. We have left behind the days of untrained teachers on Zoom, and online tutoring has gone from a niche option to the number one choice for individualized support.
Still, when it comes to students with ADHD, there are questions: won't being in front of the computer make them more distracted? Don't they need the instructor to physically be there to make sure they stay on task? Wouldn't they choose to ignore the teacher and focus on something else otherwise?
To answer these questions, we need to do away with the idea that the computer is something that only distracts and is never educational. The computer is a site for learning just as a physical classroom is, and we should instead think of what online tutoring can do better for students with ADHD than physical classrooms instead of only what they don't do as well. For example:
- A physical change in environment could be even more distracting for a student with ADHD than their familiar home environment. A student at home also has much more control over the environment than they would in a physical classroom, and this sense of control can give the student more focus rather than less.
- Distance learning can give educators access to more teaching materials and technologies. A physical space can constrain what is possible when it comes to providing variety to a student with ADHD. But online teaching can take many forms easily. And the best part is that an online classroom does not mean that physical activities don’t happen. Students with ADHD can still do pen and paper work, get up and move around, etc., in an online setting.
- Online tutoring can be more fluid than in-person. Even when the tutoring is in the student's home, distance and space can limit flexibility. But online tutoring is more adaptive to the fluid schedules of many different types of students, like those who are athletes or who have jobs or intense extra-curriculars. And students with ADHD!
So how can Online Tutoring be adapted for students with ADHD?
Online tutoring will not be appropriate for every student with ADHD, just like in-person tutoring and traditional classroom schooling are not appropriate for every student. It requires, more than anything, a tutor that is informed and modern and understands how to make the most of an online setting. The tutor will need to understand how to translate best practices I mentioned before to online distance teaching.
- Because it is harder to read physical social cues across a monitor, trust between tutor and student will be even more important than in an in-person setting. Tutors should make it clear how they and the student with ADHD will communicate problems and needs, such as taking breaks. Tutors should create an environment of honesty about when focus is being lost or what practices aren’t working. Online teaching platforms, such as those that Learner uses, provide a large number of digital ways that students can respectfully catch the tutor's attention, and these should all be explored.
- Tutors must be more attentive to the way that they can inadvertently distract a student. When sharing screens, movements of the cursor can be distracting in unexpected ways. The layout of certain websites can also cause distraction in ways that a tutor wouldn't think of at first. The way a presentation slide looks might work for some students and not others, while some students with ADHD will find a slide presentation completely ineffective. Online tutors need to come to class even more prepared than they would be for in-person classes, ready with many alternate materials, the same lessons repeated across different modes (video, text, audio), and with anything online already downloaded and stripped of distracting side content.
- Tutors should also expect the student with ADHD to take more control and responsibility over their home environment to minimize native distractions. In an online classroom, a tutor will not have the same influence over what is in and around the learning environment as they would in a tutoring center. So they need to be much more proactive in communicating expectations and incidents with the parent than they would as an in-person tutor. They should expect a baseline level of effort from the parents and students to keep the student's immediate surroundings free of anything that could jeopardize a successful session.
Final thoughts
Overall, the biggest difference and most complex adaptation between in-person and online tutoring will be the responsibility and control that the student with ADHD will need to have. But this can also be a strength of online tutoring. Students with ADHD are not helpless or weak. They have what is simply a very different way of learning and negotiating education than those without ADHD—that is, they are neurodivergent, not deficient. Parents of students with ADHD—and the students themselves—should want a tutor and a tutoring company that understands this basic principle.
The best online tutoring platform will provide both flexibility and expertise and will employ tutors from a variety of different professional and personal backgrounds, including work and experience with ADHD.
If your teen with ADHD is getting ready for the SAT, our guide to navigating ADHD and autism during the SATs shares strategies for preparing, staying focused and handling test day.
