“Focus and Concentration,” the first event of the Learning Skills Workshop, helped maximize students’ abilities on Friday, Sept. 14 in the Gateway Center.
This was the first event of Learning Skills Workshops held through this semester. Jana Garnett, the Disabled Student Programs and Services (DSPS) director and pediatric occupational therapist Leslie Lannan taught 25 students with their extensive knowledge of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
Garnett and Lannan educated participants of sensory components and sensory solutions of the disorders.
“We all have to work on managing our resources of attention, so some of us are better than others,” Garnett said. “Some of us have learned skills to compensate, and some of us are very new in understanding how to manage our attention. Anyone of us can benefit [from this workshop].”
When most people think of ADD as a shortage of attention, Garnett confirmed that is a misnomer.
“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” Garnett said. “The deficit isn’t in your attention. It’s in the filters that manage that attention.”
Garnett showed a diagnostic criteria for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). If a person has six or more characteristics from the list, he/she has ADD/ADHD, Garnett said.
Lannan, a pediatric occupational therapist at the Center for Improvement, Esteem, Learning and Opportunity (CIELO), said sensory integration dysfunction (SID) often goes with ADD and ADHD diagnoses.
She identified two types of people with SID, those seeking stimulation and those withdrawing from it.
Those affected can’t help but check phones, bounce feet, click pens and have music on, Lannan said
“I have ADD … so I think it was interesting kind of to learn more details about it,” 18-year-old film major Logan McKenzie said.
People with ADD or ADHD often fidget, talk out, move around, make noise and take risks, Garnett said.
“If you sit and analyze those behaviors, the body is trying to compensate for a lack of stimulation,” Garnett explained. “Your brain is under stimulated, so what are you going to do? You’re going to seek stimulation.”
Business major Charlene Bell, 17, said her favorite part about the workshop was the speakers.
Lannan and Garnett recommended Roland Rotz’s book “Fidget to Focus” and his workshop “ADHD Through The Lifespan” from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Nov. 17 in the Santa Barbara Schott Center, Room 30.
