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Social Worker/Guidance Counselor
- Works with college age students in a private practice. Also runs a K-12 guidance department at a mid size school.*
- Social Involvement of others is important to improving attention*
- People with ADHD understand they have a problem. A common behavior is installing self help software and then not using it/uninstalling it.*
- Tedious and boring material is so unappealing in relationship with easy access engagement and stimulation*
- Precipitous drop in the grades of ADHD kids who are given iPads in the classroom*
- Reward systems have proven effective where stimulation is given in exchange for accomplishment*
MIT Course 16 Senior
- Long unordered lists get ignored, while lists with a clear hierarchy of titles or ideas are very attractive.*
- Graphics and colors get noticed first, things that are familiar or expected or easier to look at and more appealing*
- Low tolerance for sites that take more than a few seconds to understand*
- Chunking improves ability to scan/comprehend*
- It is important to keep track of useful information to pull up and see all together (e.x. Summaries)*
Dina Course 9 Junior
- Has difficulty starting tasks, doesn’t know what approach to take*
- Hyperfocuses on specific things. This tends to happen with hands-on work*
- Low capacity for working memory: losing thread in the middle of a paragraph/long questions.*
- Breaks information into parts to deal with it. Switches between topics and tasks to keep interested. Sets goals to accomplish before starting to work, and writes them down.*
- Plans rigid time blocks in which to do activities*
User Analysis/Groups
From our observations and interviews, we identified two broad user groups: students with ADHD, as well as their parents, friends, teachers or other interested parties.
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