ADHD, Anxiety, Learned Helplessness and their Impact upon Academics

What happens when children with ADHD become teenagers with ADHD, in terms of their ability to complete their academic work? In elementary and middle school, the quantity of school work that is required by children may seem to be more than when we were growing up. However, the quantity and quality of academic work that is required of teenagers in high school grows exponentially with each year. The symptoms of these teenagers’ ADHD impact their academic work to an even greater extent than in the earlier grades. Additionally, if a teenager is characterized by ADHD and anxiety, their executive function difficulties become all the more complicated. Let me give you an example.

One of the teenagers with whom I work who has ADHD and anxiety, had an assignment in which he was required to write a continuation of what he thought might have have happened next in a Shakespearean play that his class had been reading. The students were not required or even asked to write this scene in Elizabethan English. This young man is a voracious reader and has a reading level that is well beyond his years, both in terms of decoding and comprehension  

However, his anxiety froze any ability that he might have had to write the required scene. I worked with him and together we traced what he could write. For example, if the main character had stayed in the room instead of running out, what might have happened next. We talked about several scenarios and he chose one.

He was supposed to go home and tell his Mom (who acts as a scribe for him due to the fact that he has a written language disability) what he wanted to say. Then, she would type the scene for him. You may be asking yourself why he does not type on the computer himself. He types very slowly, so for now, we are having his Mom write/type these assignments for him, just at the very least, to get him to complete his assignments.

We had an overall power outage this past week due to the October snowstorm, so he did not have school. The afternoon of the first day back at school, I met with this teenager, and asked if he had completed the English assignment. He began to behave in a very immature way, rolling his top lip over his bottom lip, and making sort of whining sounds. He finally told me that he had not done the English assignment. I asked why he had not completed the assignment.

He told me that he had asked the teacher in the learning center for help, but that she had helped him with another essay that he had not completed that was worth 100 points. I then redirected the conversation to find out the reason why he had not done the assignment. It appeared that due to the anxiety of the assignment, he just could not get himself to do it.

He told me that more straight- forward assignments, such as math or social studies were not a problem for him. He then told me that when he had to make things up, i.e., in this case a scene from a play, that he could not do it himself. I truly believe that this young man’s anxiety caused a type of writer’s block.

I have to tell you about another problem that I truly believe contributed to him not completing this assignment. He definitely has a type of learned helplessness, in addition to his ADHD and anxiety. He has learned over the years that he thinks that cannot accomplish certain things, which I believe is more directly related to his anxiety than his ADHD. Therefore, he will only complete those tasks with help.

When he first had this assignment, his first comment to me was “I can’t do this assignment. Ms. Smith will help me in the learning center.” The question was: How could I get him to do the assignment himself?  I told him that he could most certainly complete this assignment. However, there was no way that he believed what I said. I gave him several reasons why he could complete the assignment, but he did not agree with any of them.

I explained to him that this assignment was really no different than the scenes that he had made up with his brother when they were young and used imaginative play. I finally used humor to help him to understand that he could complete his assignment. He laughed, but still stated that he could not do the assignment.

Yesterday, I spoke to him in a very direct manner and told him that oftentimes teachers do not understand the impact of either ADHD or anxiety, in terms of students having difficulty completing assignments due to those issues.  They certainly understand that teenagers with ADHD need some help.

I continued our conversation by saying that since this is high school, however, the teachers also assume that students have learned self-regulatory skills which help them to complete and hand in all assignments on time. I then told him that I do not blame those teachers, because all assignments should be handed in on time by every student in the class.

In an effort to move this fifteen year old young man past his learned helplessness, I also told him that it is possible that some teachers might think that he was being lazy, or perhaps that he simply did not want to do the required work. He thought about what I said and was upset at the thought of the teachers thinking in that way. However, he still insisted that he could not do that English assignment.



I told him that he is so bright that his teachers expect him to hand in all of the assignments on time. I told him that he is the same as everyone else, in terms of handing in assignments. Then, he said to me, “But I am not the same as everyone else. I am different.” Before I give you my opinion of this young man’s comments, what do you think????