3 Organizational Tips to Improve Compliance in Kids with ADHD (and other youth, too)

Kids with ADHD have a tendency to forget things and get distracted and this often leads to messy personal space and non-compliance with things like submitting homework, cleaning one’s room, and following directions. Here are 7 organizational-related tips that are based upon behavioral science to help children with (or without) ADHD improve their compliance in many areas of life.

1. Put labels on storage containers
   1. Labels provide a visual reminder (a discriminative stimulus) that triggers the appropriate behavior of placing items in their correct location. The important part to continue this behavior of putting things where they belong is for the child to experience positive reinforcement immediately after the behavior occurs. For some kids, simply having things in their places will work as reinforcement after awhile, but for others, frequent praise or a token system might need to be put into place.
2. Reduce the response effort for putting things away
   1. Kids are more likely to do something (comply) when it requires less effort on their part. This is particularly true with children with ADHD as these children have to put in much more effort than the typical child (without ADHD) in many activities throughout their day. It takes them much more effort to find their clothing items, to put toys away, and to follow directions due to their higher levels of distrability and hyperactivity and related symptoms. An example of reducing the response effort is to put a laundry basket in a place of easy access for the child to put away dirty clothes (as opposed to the laundry basket being further away and harder to get to). Another example is to provide the child with storage systems that are easier to use, such as containers with no lids (as opposed to containers with latching sides). The more effort it takes to comply with directions and expectations, the more difficult and less likely it will be to occur.
3. Provide an area which is approved to be messy.
   1. Being messy isn’t exactly organizing, but if you allow an area in the home where the child can be messy and put things where ever he or she would like to (such as a certain area in the basement or a corner of his room), he will gain the reinforcement that he naturally gets from organizing “in his way,” and the behavior of being disorganized will be less likely to occur in the other areas where this behavior is not allowed (as long as appropriate reinforcement procedures are in place in those areas for the appropriate behaviors).

These 3 organizational tips will help a child with ADHD (or even without ADHD) to be more likely to comply in their daily life. They will be more likely to follow directions (such as cleaning their room or doing homework) and they are more likely to meet daily expectations such as cleaning their room or completing chores.

image credit: mashiki via Fotalia

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