The impact and impairments of ADHD in Higher Education

Jane Sedgwick & Poppy Ellis Logan

Thanks for coming to our session.

Today we will be answering this question: “What reasonable adjustments are needed in

Higher Education to ensure that students with ADHD can access and engage with all opportunities to learn?”

At the end of the session we’d like each of youto answer this question:

“What will you do to make this happen?”

º How might ADHD impact the average university student?

º What do you think are the biggest difficulties of being a student with ADHD?

º What reasonable adjustments are you aware of that address these issues?

Introduction

This Topic

Sits at the interface between -

• Common disciplines? • Both are concerned with “changing the mind” – either

through healing or teaching practices (maybe both)

Psychiatry <

(ADHD)

> Education(Pedagogy)

Why examine ADHD in relation to educational outcomes?

1. Economic Costs

Annual per-person ADHD-related costs within education = €6,085

“The aggregate costs of ADHD are thus estimated at around £102,135 per case.

Education is the largest single component, accounting for 44% of the total.”

• Poor academic, social & psychological functioning

• Giftedness (twice-exceptionality; 2e)

• New media technologies (Internet overuse or addiction, includes gaming & gambling)

• Treatment (limited access to ADHD services)

• Substance misuse (alcohol; prescribed & non-prescribed drugs)

• Malingering

2. Burden of illness

Giftedness - a conundrum for clinical practice?• The attributes of intellectually gifted students can

resemble the characteristics of ADHD• Being intellectually gifted plus having ADHD (or another

disorder) is termed “twice-exceptionality” (2e)• Students with 2e are often the most misunderstood • Educationalists & clinicians struggle to differentiate

ADHD from traits of 2e such as intensity, drive, perfectionism, curiosity, impatience, oppositional defiance (Silverman 1994; Webb 1993)

• University students who obtain good grades but still report symptoms related to ADHD – most at risk of not getting diagnosed (Beljan et al 2006)

In the UK, young people with ADHD are unlikely to enrol into further education & of those who do go to university, few will graduate at the same time as their non-ADHD peers.

So it’s surprising that...

• In the UK, there is research about children, adolescents & adults with ADHD, but

• Hardly any research about the impact of ADHD on the educational outcomes of university students’

• We do not even know how many university students in the UK have ADHD, but we can estimate using statistics...

3. Paucity of Research

ADHD – It’s the Big Question? No known Disability 673,185 ~4% prevalence = ~27,000Known to have a Disability 83,410Mental Health & SpLD & ASD 53,795 ~50% prevalence = 27,000SpLD (mainly dyslexia) 38,925Visual impairment 1,065Hearing impairment 2,085Physical impairment 2,925Mental health condition 11,915Social communication/ASD 2,955Long-standing illness or health condition 8,635Two or more conditions 7,030Another type of disability 7,880

2014/15 1st Year UG & PG UK Domiciled Students in Higher Education with or without a Disability

(Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited, 2016)

Big Issues in UK Universities

• The general mis-classification of ADHD as a specific learning disability (SpLD)

• The ‘ADHD attainment gap’ suggests that the “reasonable adjustments” typically provided to students with ADHD are not very effective. We do not even know if they promote positive educational outcomes for university students with ADHD.

• UK universities are unable to demonstrate the effectiveness of reasonable adjustments in promoting positive educational outcomes for all disabled students(Rodger et al 2015)

• This project is also a service development initiative

In 2013/14: about 83,500 1st year students were known to have a disability (Higher Education Statistical Authority (HESA); Department of Business Innovation & Skills, 2015)

Symptoms of ADHD that impair educational progress and achievement at all levels:

• Mind Wandering (daydreaming; intrusive task-unrelated thoughts)

• Poor working memory (requiring more time to understand complex conceptual ideas)

• Disorganisation & inefficiency• Difficulties with planning ahead; misjudging how long tasks take

to perform (different conception of time)• Procrastination• Forgetfulness• Difficulty sustaining attention (especially when bored or not

engaged)• Difficulties following long explanations• Hyper-focus on topics of self-interest to the detriment of other

topics and tasks

Those impairments cause problems throughout schooling, and might have been similar to

what you thought of at the beginning of this presentation. But those problems are just a tiny part of all the massive challenges any student with ADHD faces when it

comes to surviving Higher Education.

Poppy talks about the real-time experience of being a student with

ADHD

Why consider reasonable adjustments (i.e. “disability support”) in education?

The Legislative context (in brief)• The Equality Act places a legal duty to put in place

“reasonable adjustments” to programmes of study for disabled students (incl. those with ADHD)

• Reasonable adjustments must enable disabled students to access all opportunities for teaching, learning & participation at every level

• Universities receive a “disability premium” (extra funding) to ensure their meet their legislative duties under the Equality Act

• Disabled students can get additional funding via the “Disabled Students Allowance” (DSA)

• Disabled employees can get additional funding via “Access to Work”

ADHD is a disability

Reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities

Some basic reasonable adjustments for ADHD’s learning-specific impairments (Sedgwick J, 2017)

However:Reasonable adjustments for people with ADHD

need to address a wider range of issues than the adjustments provided to people with disorders that

only cause impairment during specific learning activities.

SpLD-style adjustments alone are not enough. This is because ADHD is NOT a disorder that is specific only to the process of learning. It is not an SpLD.

ADHD is a disability that impacts every aspect of a person’s life.

Education providers have a legal duty to make sure that any student with a physical disability

receives whatever support they require to access their classes, prepare for their lectures,

complete their assignments and perform in their examinations.

Education providers have the same legal duty to provide students with ADHD whatever support

they require in order to be able to access all opportunities for teaching, learning &

participation at every level.

GOING FORWARD, THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT CAN HELP...

Poppy to add further interventions / highlight the need for attitude shift. I can use my paper.

Questions

– Also give our contact details for further questions etc.