Shashi DeHaan’s son was in Grade 1 when she first noticed something wasn’t right.
It was spring and, seemingly all of a sudden, he didn’t want to go to school anymore.
“He just refused to go,” DeHaan, 39, recalled. “It was like, you’re physically having to carry him in.”
After trying everything they could think of?staying with him for a bit longer, having his father walk him to school instead, even bribing him?they took him for counselling, where it was suggested he had anxiety issues.
“Now we know the anxiety was due to ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder).”
But it would be another three years before her son, who DeHaan asked not to be named, received a formal medical diagnosis of the disorder.
Until then, DeHaan and her husband struggled with his recurring meltdowns from not wanting to attend their South Burnaby school, his fear of reading out loud, and hearing him put himself down for his performance in school, even though he was meeting academic standards.
DeHaan is frustrated that in the end, the diagnosis came as a result of the family paying $2,000 to have her son tested.
But with the diagnosis came the understanding that ADHD doesn’t always involve hyperactivity and can affect a person’s self-management skills, including the ability to organize, manage time and get homework done.
As he was expected to do more homework, he became overwhelmed and shut down, his anxiety increasing higher.
Meanwhile, he knows he is intelligent and can do better than he’s shown in the classroom. He’s meeting learning outcomes, “but he’s frustrated because he knows he can do more but he can’t because of ADHD.”
The attention deficit causes him to get bored easily and in turn, make careless mistakes in his work, which then combines with his perfectionism to cause his anxiety, DeHaan explained.
“ADHD is holding back his potential from his intelligence.”
Figuring out what the problem was has resulted in some progress. While his doctor is still trying to find the right dosage of medication for his needs, and counselling is dealing with the anxiety issues, he seen some accommodations at school but only because DeHaan was able to have him designated by the school district as “gifted.”
He doesn’t have to do as much writing because of a motor delay, he spends more time with a computer, he can take tests in chunks of time instead of all at once, and the amount of homework he gets has been reduced, all while still being required to meet academic standards.
Still, DeHaan is frustrated that he doesn’t qualify for more one-on-one support in school.
DeHaan noted that if her son had ADHD combined with behavioural problems or a learning disability, he would qualify for added funding and supports.
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British Columbia, along with Ontario and Quebec, were recently given a failing grade by the Toronto-based Centre for ADHD Advocacy, Canada (CADDAC) for their education ministries not providing accommodations in the way children with ADHD are taught and evaluated?unless they have additional disorders or learning disabilities.
Heidi Bernhardt, CADDAC’s national director, said not dealing with the issue can have major impacts on these children’s lives. Studies have show that children with ADHD have a much higher dropout rate, and lower rates of not only getting into post-secondary education but completing it.
Adults with ADHD who end up in work they find boring end up moving from job to job, she said.
ADHD affects about five per cent of children in Canada, or one to three children in every classroom, she said. “It’s prevalent, it’s there.”
Unfortunately, many misconceptions remain.
“For many years, people falsely believed that all a child needed was to take a pill and everything would go away,” Bernhardt said.
Current research shows ADHD significantly impacts “executive functioning” which includes organizational skills, time management, problem solving, foresight and hindsight. And the impacts get worse as these children get into the higher grades.
Ironically, Bernhardt said, many universities recognize ADHD as a disorder that qualifies for accommodations for the student.
The trick is to get to university first, and to deal with the stigma that still remains.
Bernhardt knows of parents who refuse to tell teachers of their child’s ADHD diagnosis because of both the stigma involved and the fact they don’t believe there are any supports available in the school system. Some will go looking for a learning disability to try and get the accommodations.
As a former psychiatric nurse, Bernhardt said she recalls 30 years ago people didn’t take clinical depression seriously, putting it down to laziness or people just having down days. That’s no longer the case.
“They don’t get that with ADHD yet.”
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Raising awareness of ADHD and how it manifests itself is one of the greatest challenges in the school system, said Deborah Simak, Burnaby school district’s district principal for learning support services.
Recognizing the disorder is the first step. The district then provides assistance to students on a very individualized basis.
“It’s not a cookie-cutter approach,” Simak said.
Students identified as not meeting expectations in the areas of academic outcomes, social competence and who might show interfering behaviours, such as frequent trips to sharpen their pencils, would then be considered for specific interventions. The level of intervention increases according to the need, said Simak, who estimated up to one per cent of Burnaby students have ADHD, including those with additional learning disabilities and disorders.
She stressed that the district does not require a formal ADHD diagnosis to respond to a child’s needs.
Education Minister George Abbott said in an emailed statement that while ADHD is not specifically designated as qualifying for additional special-needs funding, that’s because not all children with the disorder are affected the same way.
“It’s important to point out that our system in British Columbia is responsive to the individual needs of students; there is no one-size-fits-all solution for students with special needs, including those with ADD or ADHD,” Abbott said.
“In B.C., we have a funding formula that addresses categories of behavioural and learning needs. These categories are determined by the extent of need and not necessarily limited to diagnoses of particular disorders.”
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