Peer-reviewed article
Understanding the Relationship Between Early Elementary Children's ADHD Symptoms and Teachers' Needs Supportive Practices.
Kang M, Bédard AV, Pyle A, Guay F, Martinussen R et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how teachers respond to children with ADHD symptoms in first grade, focusing on whether teachers provide supportive practices that meet children's motivational needs. The research involved 154 first-grade students and 25 teachers, measuring ADHD symptoms, teacher-student relationships, and teaching practices. The findings show that children with more ADHD symptoms had lower-quality relationships with teachers, though teachers sometimes provided more autonomy support to these children. The study highlights that teachers need better support to manage disruptive behaviours while maintaining children's motivation and engagement.
Key points
- Children with ADHD symptoms, particularly boys, had lower-quality relationships with their teachers
- Greater conduct problems were associated with worse student-teacher relationships and less autonomy support from teachers
- Teacher-reported ADHD symptoms were positively related to student-reported autonomy support, suggesting teachers sometimes increased autonomy support for these children
- Teacher-reported ADHD symptoms did not predict student-reported structure in the classroom
- Teachers need better strategies to support children with ADHD and disruptive behaviours while protecting their motivational needs
Limitations
The study is correlational and cannot establish causation. The findings are based on teacher and student perceptions rather than direct observation of classroom practices, and the sample is limited to three school boards in one country.
Abstract
Objective Many children with diagnosed and subclinical ADHD struggle with low academic motivation in early elementary. Fortunately, teachers' needs' supportive practices (NSPs) can mitigate motivational challenges and protect against disengagement and underachievement. Teachers' NSPs include autonomy support, structure, and positive student-teacher relationships that target children's motivational resources (i.e., autonomy, competency, and relatedness) needed to engage with school materials. Particularly, autonomy support practices fuel children's feelings of autonomy, structure caters to feelings of competency, and positive student-teacher relationships provide feelings of belonging. Yet, it is unknown how ADHD symptoms in early elementary are associated with teachers' NSPs. Methods One hundred and fifty-four first-grade students and 25 teachers from three school boards participated. We assessed children's perception of their teachers' autonomy support and structure and their standardised achievement. We also assessed teachers' perceptions of students' ADHD symptoms, student-teacher relationship quality, and conduct problems. Three linear regression analyses were performed with ADHD symptoms as the predictor and NSPs as the dependent variable. Sex, conduct problems, and achievement scores were included as covariates. Results Sex (i.e., males), greater teacher-reported ADHD symptoms, and more teacher-reported conduct problems were associated with worse teacher-reported student-teacher relationship quality. Teacher-reported ADHD symptoms were positively related to student-reported autonomy support, while teacher-reported conduct problems were negatively associated with student-reported autonomy support. Teacher-reported ADHD symptoms and key covariates did not predict student-reported structure. Conclusion Our study illustrates the need to further evaluate how best to support teachers managing disruptive behaviours in early elementary to protect the motivational needs of young children with ADHD symptoms.