Taking a Stance for ADHD Recognition
Maybe you're like me, an (exhausted) working mom doing her best to navigate through an educational system rife with red tape that largely serves itself, and sadly, not children.
For students with any form of disabilities, educational success often hinges on accommodations. Bias, judgments made without conscious awareness, often prevent accommodations from being granted. Not only is there well-studied evidence of disability specific bias – against those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as opposed to a visible physical impairment, but there's the lived experience of countless students with ADHD as evidence, my son included. This bias appears in some teachers’ perceptions and conduct toward students and their leeway to make prejudiced decisions about a student’s IEP (Individualized Education Plan) on which students will receive accommodations that bolster their likelihood to thrive.
What is an accommodation within education in the context of an Individualized Education Plan?
They are adjustments to the tasks, environment or to the way things are usually done that allow students with disabilities to have an EQUITABLE opportunity to participate. This means the intention of IEPs are NOT granting unfair advantages, as some interpretations by some uneducated educators suggest.
Perceptions of work ethic often underlie the disability bias. Some individuals in leadership conflate behavioral disabilities with laziness. In non-physical disabilities such as ADHD, where executive functioning challenges can be misinterpreted or stereotyped as indicating low engagement and low effort. These beliefs about work ethic correlate with deservingness. Often support is given only to those who are making efforts - efforts that are approved by biased individuals - to rectify their situation, as if a disability can be rectified, as if it's already too much to ask when the load is unfairly heavy on one with a disability. For some teachers to say "get used to it; it will prepare you for real life" is unhelpful. School is real life, for teachers and students, and is a pillar of society. To make matters more complicated, racial bias adds to these perceptions. It not only applies to children, but to their parents, too. An Asian mother, like myself, is often painted as a Tiger Mom, no matter what.
The educational system has more teaching disabilities than students with learning disabilities. I want to let you know that you're not alone. I will keep writing about this, as I have over the years. Maybe I will gain clarity and voice as I do this, maybe you will, too. I also want to make this clear that it's not all teachers and not all administrators, before my comments are filled with unhelpful reactions.
We all have a lot to learn here. Biases are invisible. If you're like me, an intuitive, you walk alongside the Unseen. I see by acknowledging these judgments, hidden from view and often guarded by a society that values status quo, we are engaging in magickal work.
Including a few resources below that may help you navigate and provide you with language: