ADA Reflection

The ADA assignment that I was assigned was, “You have ADD. While completing a reading assignment for school. You will need to get up and walk away from your reading every 5 minutes”. The first time that I attempted to complete this assignment, I was doing my reading for this class. I got up after 5 minutes and walked away. I came back to my reading and started reading some more. After about 5 minutes, my husband started to talk to me about something. After we got done talking, I got up to make dinner. After dinner, I remembered another assignment that I needed to complete and started working on that. After working on that for a little while, I remembered that I was in the process of doing my ADA assignment.

In another attempt to complete the assignment, I was working on my ecomap today with a partner. As I was asking questions about her family, we got very distracted because I would start saying a story I remembered that related and other topics not related to the assignment. I realized that I was doing this assignment without even trying.

As I was doing these things with this assignment in mind, I at times would get frustrated with myself because I couldn’t just complete one simple assignment. As hard as I tried to stay focused and complete one task, I would still get distracted. I do not have any diagnosed ADD, however through this assignment I got a little more of a taste of how they feel. I was frustrated as well because a homework assignment that should have taken 15-20 minutes was now taking hours to complete.

When I think about those with this disability, it is one that is not physically seen on the outside. You can’t look at someone with ADD and say “Oh, that person has ADD”. It is a mental disability that can impair someone’s ability to focus on tasks that they are trying to complete. This can cause many problems in the classroom because teachers may not know right away and may not know how to first accommodate them. This can also be frustrating because they are trying to complete their work just like their peers but are unable to or take much longer because of this disability.

I think it is extremely important as teachers and humans to be aware of these disabilities, and that disabilities are not always physical, but mental as well. This does not mean that these people are any less smart as their peer sitting next to them. This does not mean that they cannot learn or be successful in school and life. This means that we treat them the same way as everyone else, but provide them with the resources and services available to make sure they are getting the education they need in the way that they need it. For example, possibly giving them the same assignment as the other students but shortening it so that they can complete it within their attention span time frame.