tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23549134070803484282024-03-13T07:48:04.443-05:00Days in the Life - ADHDThis is an example blog for Psychology Research Project: Inside Out.
The entries were written by a middle school student: Laurie H. in 2009. Mrs. Dovrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419718859474221442noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354913407080348428.post-46899036651083333252014-05-03T16:30:00.000-05:002015-05-12T10:45:20.401-05:00Day 3: It's Not Always My Fault<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Every day some kid calls me a jerk. Sometimes a kid calls me a
jerk like today because I accidentally hit him with my backpack, but I didn't
see him...I heard the bell ring for lunch and jumped out of my seat so I could
get to the library right away to get one of the computers before they
were all taken and when I swung around, the kid was there. Of course, he yelled
at me so everyone heard, and the teacher made me sit down for being rude...and
so of course I got to the library late...that was okay,
though, because the librarian sometimes talks with me and
today she let me put books back on the shelves for her...until I forgot that
they had to be in order by the number, not just the author's name...and
then she got frustrated with me</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> because
she says I don't pay attention to details (Friend & Bursuck, p.
282). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At
least today wasn't as bad as yesterday. When the counselor, Mrs. Bright, showed
mom that graph with all the bars and said that the bars showed all the classes
and how much I am failing, I felt like a real jerk then (Collins, p. xii). Mom didn't get mad,
though...she told Mrs. Bright about this diary thing I'm doing and some
other things that Dr. Baker is doing. Mrs. Bright didn't seem too
interested...she doesn't think I can change, I can tell. I hope I can change. I
don't like feeling like a jerk. And I don't think I'm really that dumb like
some kids think; some stuff in school is really fun like when we got to do
reports on marine life. I can tell you everything there is to know about
elephant seals, and that's cool, because most kids can only tell you that
elephant seals are big and ugly. Dr. Baker says that my elephant seal report
shows that I just don't learn the way that some
teachers teach and that I might be able to teach the teachers some things
(Collins, p. 27). He told my mom that some teachers do what he called
"ability profiling," and I heard him tell her that it means that some
teachers won't give me a chance. He was just talking to my mom then, and I was
in the hall waiting, but I heard and remembered what he said...I liked what he
said because it made me feel like it isn't always my fault when I get in
trouble...some teachers just think I choose to forget and to be messy
and not write like they want me to (Collins, p. 26). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mrs. Dovrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419718859474221442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354913407080348428.post-35415613780800195432014-05-02T09:40:00.001-05:002015-05-12T10:45:31.199-05:00Day 2: A Normal Beginning<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Today started out like any other; mom knocks on the door and wakes
me up...then ten minutes later, she comes to my door and finds me sitting on
the floor zoning. She yells get going or I won't get breakfast, and I look
around me at the pile of clothes on the floor and reach for a shirt and a pair
of pants. I know she's going to take one look at me and ask if I'm wearing
clean clothes; the fact is, I don't know if they're clean or not...I try to
remember to put the clean ones away and the dirty ones in the basket, but most
of the time, most of my clothes lay in a heap on my floor. Mom says
she has to choose her battles and pretty much leaves my room alone. Sometimes
when mom finds me zoning, she just says "focus;" that's kind of been
our code word since I was in pre-school. She even taught my teachers to whisper
or mouth the word to me if they found me zoning in class. Now that I'm
in middle school, though, mom is less patient and just yells. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Anyway, I walk to school and hang out in the library before
school; I don't have many friends at school, but a few of them hang out in the
library too. Most kids think I get in trouble too much or say I'm dumb and
don't want to hang out with me. My friends in the library are okay with me
and we usually talk about computer games. If I didn't have to go to
school, I would be so high up in <i>WOW (World of Warcraft)</i> by
now; on Saturday, I did a three-hour dungeon run with my guild
members...we rocked that raid! My guild is so cool; they always say
"lol" after everything I say...they're really my real friends. When I
told Mr. Roy, my history teacher, about the dungeon run, he looked at me
and said how on earth do you play a game for three hours when you can't listen
to me for ten minutes! I guess he doesn't get it...WOW is different. Maybe if
Mr. Roy would break up his talking with a raid, well, I mean, like a group
thing where we talk with people near us and...hey, yeah, I know...like today in
class he was talking about the industrial revolution...what if he let us form
groups and come up with our own industry and see if we could make it work and
how long we could make it work and we had to make sure we were working with the
other industries and no one could just sit and everyone had a job...well, I
think I wouldn't zone so much if we did stuff like that in class (Weinfeld,
Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler & Shevitz, p. 226).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mrs. Dovrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419718859474221442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354913407080348428.post-6033071773647740432014-05-01T22:00:00.000-05:002015-05-12T10:45:43.209-05:00Day 1 - This diary thing<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mom's
yelling that I need to turn out the light, but I know I'm supposed to write
this diary thing for Dr. Baker. He says that if I write about what was good and
what was bad every day, then he can help me more. He says that I'll be able to
figure out how to use strategies to help myself during the day (WGBH Educational Foundation). Dr. Baker is a
behavioral psychologist; I've been going to Dr. Baker for a while now, ever
since I was told that I have ADHD. ADHD means that I have trouble staying
focused on the right things at the right times, that I look like I'm not
following directions or listening, and that I forget stuff a lot. Every year,
it seems, teachers have been telling my parents the same things: "if Jon
would just try harder" or "Jon needs to take time to do his work
better" or "Jon constantly distracts the class by interrupting"
(Friend & Bursuck, p. 282). Dr. Baker told me that I shouldn't feel
bad about all those things the teachers have said because it wasn't like I was
choosing to act that way. So he told me to do this diary so that he can help me
see what happens each day and what I can do to help myself -- he calls it
learning coping skills. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mrs. Dovrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419718859474221442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354913407080348428.post-64218950635458926492014-05-01T10:00:00.000-05:002014-05-02T10:01:02.789-05:00References<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Collins, K. M. <i>Ability Profiling and School Failure: One Child's Struggle to be Seen as Competent</i>. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">2003</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.5in;">. Print.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Friend, M., & Bursuck, W. D. <i>Including Students with Special Needs: A Practical Guide for Classroom Teachers</i> (5th
ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">2009. Print.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lovecky, D. V. <i>Different Minds: Gifted Children
with Ad/Hd, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits</i>. London: Jessica
Kingsley, 2004. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Weinfeld, R., Barnes-Robinson, L., Jeweler, S., & Shevitz, B. "Academic Programs for Gifted and Talented/Learning Disabled Students." <i>Roeper Review </i>2002:<i> 24</i>(4), 226+. Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">WGBH Educational Foundation. "Misunderstood minds." <i>PBS.org</i>. WGBH Educational Foundation</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"> Retrieved, 2002. Web. 13 Mar. 2009. </span><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/index.html" style="text-indent: -0.5in;" target="new"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/index.html</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Zentall, S. S., & Kruczek, T. The Attraction of Color for Active Attention-Problem Children. <i>Exceptional
Children, 1988: 54</i>(4), 357+. Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mrs. Dovrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419718859474221442noreply@blogger.com0