At-risk preschoolers and students with ADHD The growth and development of children under the school going age is often expected to be normal and almost similar among all children. However, this is often not the reality in the society as some children are predisposed to some factors that curtail their normal growth and development. This developmental deficiency can be detected as early as 24 months where some children are detected to display a significant lag in cognitive and behavioral development. There are children in various categories that are predisposed to such lag in developmental issues yet they have not achieved the school going age, these are the ones referred to as the at risk preschoolers. There are various factors that have been seen to significantly subject young children to risk. One major factor is the low-income families within which they are born. Children can however be affected by more than one risk factor in effect making them more at risk, and when two or three factors are combined, there is a likelihood of the child suffering adverse effects including schooling failure, maladaptive behavior among other negative behavior. The main factors that put preschoolers at risk are households without English speakers, large families, low parental education, residential mobility, single-parent situation, teen mother situation and non-employed parents (Ritcher L.M., Black M.M & Lu C., 2016). Children living under or born in such conditions are generally categorized as at-risk lot.

ADHD

ADHD, the short form of Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, is a brain based syndrome which is highly genetic and is concerned with the regulation of a specific set of brain functions and related behaviors. ADHD is known to involve the key skills known as ‘executive functioning skills’, these include significant functions of the human brain such as concentration, attention, memory, effort, motivation, learning from errors, hyperactivity, impulsivity, social skills and organization. ADHD is caused by differences in the development of brain anatomy and wiring, hence once has a challenge in the utility of the aforementioned skills. ADHD can therefore be referred to as a persistent pattern, which is lifelong, of hyperactivity-impulsivity and/or inattention that obstructs the regular development or functioning across time and settings (The Understood Team, 2014). It is estimated that in the US, 5% of adults have ADHD, which caters for 11,000,000 people and this condition affects both male and females and not limited to children. Since it is a neurobehavioral condition, it has no cure and most of the victims do not outgrow the condition.

Characteristics of children with;

Early developmental delays- there are some signs that a parent needs to look out for in the course of development of the child. In as much as it is true that each child has his own pace...

The early developmental delays include problems with language or speech, vision, movement or the motor skills, social and emotional skills, thinking or the cognitive skills. Further, when a child displays weight or height that does not reflect their age, or if the facial features, head growth, the body proportion or the shape do not tally with the normal age mates then these too can be considered as signs of developmental delays (Morin A., 2014).
ADHD- children with this condition often display difficulty in coping with the key areas in development and life functions that are responsible for the impulse control and focus among other skills. Such children struggle with working memory, flexible thinking, managing emotions, self regulations, organization and planning. Most of the children do not manage to outgrow these condition in totality, though some of the symptoms may get lesser pronounced as they grow older. Since this condition makes the children have difficulty in handling their executive functions, they always have difficulty in managing time, getting and staying organized, managing their emotions, paying attention and recalling things, changing or shafting of their focus from one thing to another, getting started on tasks and thinking before saying or taking an action. Due to such symptoms, it is common to see the preschool children who suffer from ADHD fail to follow directions or simply ignores them, can easily and extremely get frustrated, stands up or fidgets and talks when they are expected to be silent, finds it hard beginning a task, takes things without permission and needs to be repeatedly reminded to stop and listen (National Institute of Mental Health, 2016).

Best-practice instructional strategies for students with:

Early developmental delays- in order to know how effectively handle early development delay, it is important to know that there is no one fixed cause of this complication, but the risk factors include complications at birth like low birth weight, premature birth and lack of sufficient oxygen at birth. Environmental issues like lead poisoning, exposure to drugs and alcohol, poor nutrition, trauma and difficult family conditions can also lead to developmental delays. There are other medical conditions like the chronic ear infections, vision problems, injuries with long term effect on the daily life of the child and illness which can also cause developmental delay. Once the parent and the teachers detect such symptoms in a child, the best practice to help in improving the development of the child is to communicate more with the child, for instance striking conversations more often, singing as you encourage the child to repeat and sing along. The parent also needs to read a book daily to…