Is ADHD a hindrance in the child's learning progress?

Answer 1

Yes an no. ADHD is commonly thought of as a disorder that harms a child's attention abilities. However, ADHD does not necessarily harm the attention ability of the subject, but rather unbalances it.

The school system of countries like the USA, Canada, or Europe was built to accommodate the average student who, like most other people, has the ability to enjoy one subject more than another, but is able to perform at a moderate - mostly balanced - level on each subject.

Children with ADHD are the same as children without it concerning their opinions and feelings. ADHD does notactually alter the way a child thinks, but exagerates it. For example, John (who is fictional) is a student in the 6th grade, who doesn't have ADHD. He enjoys Math and English more than his other subjects, so he always gets a B in them. He doesn't really like French and Science, so he gets a C+ on them.

Now, say we magically gave John ADHD. He still has the same opinions and feelings on these subjects, but they are exagerated - in comparison to his opinions without ADHD. He no longer enjoys doing French and Science at all, because most of his attention goes towards the subjects he loves (Math and English) on which he gets an A+. His performance on French and Science slips down to a C-, or even an F.

So, a child with ADHD is often put into a gifted learner's class, because he/she is incredibly gifted with a certain subject (ie Math and English) but does poorly on the subjects that he/she does not like.