Introduction
Psychology contemporarily insinuates itself as
one of the most contentious segments of the sector
of medical science, this being perhaps particular
due to the fact that it primarily bases its research
and studies upon intangible and theoretical rather
than tangibly physical data. Another factor, moreover,
that has tended to be one of the more significant,
recent contributors to this contentiousness has
been the increased proof of increasingly diverse
psychological ailments in consistently decreasing
age groups. Researchers have been coming up with
more and more evidence postulating the increased
prevalence of psychological disorders among typically
preadolescent, school going children. Take into
consideration, for instance, the contemporarily
exceptional incidence of Attention Deficit Hyperactive
Disorder, better known as ADHD. ADHD defines a
condition, or rather, an attention based psychological
disorder, that is found typically but not only
within children. It is a condition that makes
it uncharacteristically difficult for the individual
in question to fully concentrate on performing
the particular task at hand as effectually as
possible.
Addressing & Analyzing the Attention Deficit
Hyperactive Disorder: ADHD
It is not surprising, this being established,
that in a classroom context, children with ADHD
tend to present a rather hindering obstacle for
teachers, pushing the latter to the limits of
their professional training. Children suffering
from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder [ADHD]
have cannot stay focused on anything for more
than a particularly short stretch of time, and
this is the prime reason why they represent such
controversies within the classroom. And it would,
moreover, be noteworthy to here consider that
the causal factor for this inability to focus
attention is particularly born of an intrinsically
generic lack of motivation. It must be subsequently
taken into consideration that, considering the
inherent inability, to focus on a particular task,
ADHD children tend to have serious issues with
retaining crucial task related data such as instructions.
This is the prime reason due to which children
suffering from the Attention Deficit Hyperactive
Disorder tend to face severe learning disabilities.
That is to say that a child suffering from ADHD
typically displays the classic signs of lagging
motivation when confronted with any particular
task that involves external inhibition.
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Countering ADHD with Operant Conditioning: Reward
Contingencies & PAL
It is, however, possible to make indefinite progress
in terms motivating children with ADHD when conditioning
them to conceive that there is reward to be earned
upon the pretext of fulfilling or completing the
particular task. This is something that would
undoubtedly have marginal success as a result
of the fact that it will, at least to some degree,
have an impact on the motivational stance of the
particular children (Douglas & Parry, 1994).
Indeed, it would be significantly noteworthy to
acknowledge that, in contradiction to the wide
prevalence of research and findings, various studies
have concentrated on portraying that ADHD children
respond to reward contingencies almost but not
quite normatively.
These studies have illustrated, quite effectually
nonetheless, that ADHD children display motivational
responses to rewards that are similar to that
of their normal counterparts (Oosterlaan &
Sergeant, 1998). This is something that can be
better comprehended when considering it from the
light of the fact that a reward contingency is
something of an operant conditioning procedure
that concentrates on instilling motivation within
the child. That is to say that the teacher/parent/psychologist
etc. will focus on psychologically conditioning
the child to perceive a reward accompanying every
task fulfillment and thus be inherently motivated
to perform the specified task (Rabiner, 1999).
Another effectual measure taken against the debilitative
psychological impact of ADHD is the paired learning
association module, commonly referred to as PAL.
The paired associate learning [PAL] paradigm is
a module that implements upon a ‘simple
repetition of the particularly paired associations;
organization by conceptual or semantic categories
and elaboration; that is, a mandatory generation
of arbitrary relations between items’ (Chang,
Klorman, Shaywitz, Fletcher, Marchione, Holahan,
Stuebing, Brumaghim & Shaywitz, 1999). It
is quite apparent, thus speaking, that PAL is
a module that focuses on addressing Attention
Deficit Hyperactive Disorder in as much as putting
the mnemonically sensory input of the subjects
to a test of perseverance.
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Summation: Classroom based Analysis Reward Contingencies
& Operant
Conditioning
It is, moreover, barely surprising that the results
strongly indicated that, while children ostensibly
suffering from ADHD displayed exceptionally lower
levels of data retention, they also reflected
‘more limited learning as well as a slower
rate of learning than did children without ADHD’
(Chang et al. 1999). This, moreover, is something
that tends to be accentuated even further when
considering it in light of the fact that preschoolers
with ADHD tend respond to instructions either
rebelliously or with an absolute lack comprehension.
And while it is obvious that PAL would be the
exceptionally applicable candidate for this issue
in context to classroom learning, there is a simpler
measure that must be taken into account too. It
is important to contemplate that simpler analyzing
and solving vehicles are sometimes more effective
than their more complex counterparts, something
that brings us to the topic of brief functional
analysis within the classroom. A brief periodic
analysis of the functional statistics of the students
[either grouped or individually] would be of noteworthy
relevance to helping the teacher (s) group the
children into intelligence based learning groups.
This, in turn, would make for a modicum of convenience
being added to the teacher’s typically inevitable
frustration in concern to dealing with ADHD children
in the classroom (Boyajian, DuPaul, Handler, Eckert
& McGoey, 2004).
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