ADHD and Home Schooling

[NakedWombat]

I was sent this article about students with ADHD being able to cope with their ADHD when they are home schooled and can take control of their own education.

Experiences of ADHD-Labeled Kids Who Switch from Conventional Schooling to Homeschooling or Unschooling

Peter Gray, Psychologyv Today
September 9, 2010

Several weeks ago (see post of July 20, 2010) I posted a call for stories about children who have been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and have been homeschooled, unschooled, or "free schooled." I received 28 such stories and subjected them to a qualitative analysis.

My analysis of these stories suggests that (1) most ADHD-diagnosed kids do fine without drugs if they are not in a conventional school; (2) the ADHD characteristics don't vanish when the kids leave conventional school, but the characteristics are no longer as big a problem as they were before; and (3) ADHD-diagnosed kids seem to do especially well when they are allowed to take charge of their own education. In what follows I will elaborate upon and support each of these conclusions primarily with quotations from the stories. But, first, here are some numbers concerning whom the stories were about and who wrote them.

Of the 28 stories:

• 19 were about boys and 9 were about girls.
• 26 were written by a parent of the ADHD-diagnosed child; the other two were written, respectively, by the diagnosed person himself (who is now a 24-year-old man) and by an older sister of the diagnosed person.
• 24 were about children who were diagnosed with ADHD through a formal clinical procedure; the other 4 were about children who were labeled by medical or school officials as "ADHD" but whose parents, while agreeing that the child showed the full set of ADHD characteristics, chose not to proceed with formal diagnosis.
• 21 were about children who started their education in a conventional school (at least through part of kindergarten) and then left conventional schooling; the other 7 were about children who had never attended a conventional school.
• 21 described their nonconventional schooling as "homeschooling," 5 described theirs as "unschooling," and 2 described theirs as "alternative schooling" (one was described as a small private school in a home, "similar to homeschooling," and the other as "loosely based on Sudbury Valley").