At first glance, teens with undiagnosed ADHD may just seem like bad students, but there’s so much more to it than that. This is a small part of the reason why attention needs to be brought to teens who suffer from ADHD, and how it affects their school lives. A lot of students have gone to school with others who suffer from undiagnosed ADHD, and if you didn’t know otherwise, you would just assume that they were just loud and wouldn’t pay attention in class and could be just generally disruptive.
Chloe Bays, a UC student, suffers from ADHD and was bullied all throughout school because of it. A short interview was done with her to see how this affected her academically. Bays’ ADHD was undiagnosed for the majority of her high school career and because of that, teachers tended to think that she just didn’t care about school and was unorganized because she would forget about assignments that were due. When she got to high school it actually got worse and that was when most of the bullying took place. Since she wasn’t getting treatment for it, she wasn’t able to get accommodations or the help that she desperately needed.
Without treatment for her ADHD, Bays found it extremely difficult for her to focus in class and at home when she was trying to do her homework. On top of having a hard time trying to concentrate, whenever she had to present something for a class, especially in high school, the other students and even teachers would make fun of her for not being able to keep her train of thought or for zoning out when someone else would be talking.
Understanding ADHD — the Symptoms on WebMD highlights some of the struggles that other teens may face in school, especially if they are not receiving treatment. Common struggles that teens with ADHD face are blurting out in class and interrupting others without meaning to, becoming bored with their classwork, and rushing through assignments. Teens who have undiagnosed ADHD tend to make impulsive decisions which can make it harder for them to succeed in their relationships. For teens who have undiagnosed ADHD and have already not been doing the greatest in school, it can be even harder for them to be able to catch up, grade wise, to where they need to be; especially if they plan on furthering their education past high school. Although some symptoms related to ADHD may fade as they grow older, it is extremely important to recognize early on.
Being able to identify the signs that are present in students with ADHD, early on, rather than just writing them off as bad students, which tends to happen way too often, can make all the difference in their educational experiences. Classmates who seems to constantly disrupt the class and not pay attention may have an underlying issue.
By Chloe Davidson Activist writer
