Four Hours

Pre-K-12th Grade Teachers/ Special Educators

·      Short Description

o  This presentation will focus on some simple strategies that can be implemented in the classroom to mitigate the anxiety that is comorbid with ADHD. Many research articles are predicting an increase in anxiety among 5-18 year old children due to the pandemic. Therefore, the skills learned in this training; while beneficial for students with ADHD, will also help with the students who are expressing anxiety through behavior in the classroom without a diagnosis.

·      Long Description

o  Rationale:

§ The comorbidity between anxiety and ADHD is reported to be anywhere from 25-48% (https://www.psycom.net/adhd-children-anxiety). We are expecting to see an increase in behaviors from relational anxiety due to the pandemic. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7481176/).

§ This presentation will focus on the Three “R”s for ameliorating the behaviors that are outwardly expressed by students with ADHD and those with Anxiety tendencies.

·      Revision of the Environment: There are many things that can be done to set up the environment to decrease the impulsivity, blurting, and disruptive fidgeting that can occur because of anxiety. Dr. Riffel will share some quick strategies that will be easy to implement.

·      Replacement of Behavior: If we want to change outward behaviors, we must teach a competing behavior. Dr. Riffel will share three evidence-based ways to teach replacement behaviors.

·      Reframing of Response: Children with ADHD with impulsive behaviors can be made more anxious by adults constantly pointing out the behaviors that are occurring. We can ease these behaviors by feeding the replacement behavior with behavior specific praise and teaching students how to self-monitor.