Why do children with ADHD struggle to listen?
Listening, comprehension and working memory are impaired in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. This means children with ADHD are more likely to blurt-out answers in class, speak out of turn, interrupt, and talk too much.
Children with ADHD are easily distracted by noise and movement. Many tend to daydream and seem in a world of their own. They may find it hard to focus on one activity at a time and find it hard to follow instructions, making learning and socialising difficult.
Children with attention difficulties invariably have one of two listening difficulties:
They cannot screen out what is unimportant so listen to everything
They may not be skilled at controlling attention so miss large chunks of information.
Tip 1 – Practice makes perfect
Spending five minutes each day on listening practice can help. Try to do this at the same time every day. It’s a worthwhile investment of time and energy to ensure your words fall on open ears.
What is listening practice?
Listening practice involves adults giving children positive reinforcement for correctly listening to instructions. It is one of the best ways to help younger children, especially those under ten, who have ADHD, attend to requests and to stop interrupting.
Tips to practice listening with your child
Gain your child’s attention by saying her name or making eye contact. If getting his attention is a challenge in itself, it often helps to stand or sit directly in front of him, make eye contact, and maintain frequent eye contact during listening practice. Also ask him to stop any other activity he’s doing at the time, and to put away any objects so that his hands are empty.
Explain that you are going to start listening practice.
Maximize the chances of having her undivided attention by turning off the TV and doing this at a time when there are likely to be minimal interruptions.
Give a number of simple, clear instructions, one at a time.
After each instruction, praise her when she listens and does what is asked.
Make it encouraging and enjoyable.
Your comments will be something like this:
Please put the t-shirt in the laundry basket.
Thank you, you’re a good listener.
Now please sharpen this pencil.
What a great listener.
Next, I’d like you to put the pencil in your pencil case.
You’re a fantastic listener.
Build it up…
Once she gets good at these simple one-step commands, kick listening practice up a notch by introducing two-step activities like, “please sharpen your pencil and put in the pencil case”, then three-step activities.
Tip 2 - Bingo!
Another fun way of improving listening skills is to play sound bingo. Make a bingo card with sounds you would make when preparing an evening meal. The water running, chopping onions, opening a jar, putting something in the oven, for example. Get your child to sit in the kitchen while you cook, but facing away from you. Every time they hear a sound on the card, they cross it off, just like real bingo. Its best if you play with more than one child, as there’s nothing like a bit of competition to help them raise their game.
Tip 3 – The Listening Shell
If you have a problem with your child interrupting, introduce a sea shell. At dinner time, or whenever you sit together as a family, when one person is speaking they could hold this listening shell, which means that everyone else (including the adults) must listen to what they say.
This can be any object that you have around the house.
Tip 4 – Sabotage…
Play "Champion Distractor." This is an enjoyable competitive game. One person has to focus on completing a task, while the person playing Distractor does everything possible to distract the other person and disrupt the task. In order to win, a person must work hard to be a good Distractor and also work hard at not being distracted by the other Distractors. Another fun listening practice is to play a family round of ‘Simon says’. This game teaches children to listen carefully for specific instructions and then do the actions.
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