The Impact of Remote Learning on Students with ADHD

 The Covid-19 pandemic has affected our everyday lives in ways that we wouldn’t have known. People took the necessary precautions by wearing masks and quarantining to stop the spread of Covid. The pandemic also caused schools to close in a matter of weeks, forcing students to transition quickly from in-person learning to remote learning. Some would agree that the transition was challenging and greatly impacted students who have pre-existing mental health conditions and neurodiversity; as they did not receive the same amount of resources compared to being in-person.

Many studies are exploring the impact of remote learning during Covid-19. In this study, “Remote Learning During Covid-19: Examining School Practices, Service Continuation, and Difficulties for Adolescents With and Without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder”, high school students took part in surveys to compare remote learning for students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and those without it (Becker et al., 2020).  The results of the study provided evidence that students that were diagnosed with ADHD were negatively affected by remote learning; in addition, students with ADHD found it more difficult to concentrate compared to students who do not have ADHD (Becker et al., 2020). The study helps shine a light on the negative impact of remote learning for students with ADHD during the pandemic.  

In class, we had the opportunity to read and listen to Dr. Kwasa and the research she partook in investigating the differences of cognitive and behavioral performances of attention control between participants with ADHD and neurotypical participants. Participants were asked to sustain attention and ignore distraction sounds as the EEG would measure neural response. The results of the study demonstrate that “Adults with ADHD have weaker volitional control of attentional processes than their neurotypical counterpart” (Kwasa et al. 2021). This means that participants with ADHD showed a weaker top-down modulation, participants found it harder to sustain attention with unpredictable distractions.

The results of Kwasa et al. may provide an insight as to why it is difficult for students with ADHD to learn during the pandemic. Students were more than likely completing their classes at their homes with many sounds causing distractions and making it difficult to hold attention. I think that we can learn from these articles to provide better support for students with ADHD in the future.

Works Cited

Becker, Stephen P., et al. “Remote Learning during COVID-19: Examining School Practices, Service Continuation, and Difficulties for Adolescents with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.” Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 67, no. 6, 2020, pp. 769–777., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.09.002. 

Kwasa, Jasmine A., et al. “Top-down Attention Modulates Auditory-Evoked Neural Responses in Neurotypical, but Not ADHD, Young Adults.” 2021, https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.11.430824.