What ADHD Research Tells Us About How Children Learn

At Harmon School, we design our program around how students actually learn — not around trends. A growing body of neuroscience and occupational therapy research supports something we see every day in our classrooms: many students with ADHD don’t struggle because they “aren’t trying” — they struggle because they cannot yet plan, sequence, and execute actions efficiently.

A 2020 peer-reviewed study of children ages 7–11 found that the primary difference for students with ADHD was not in basic sensory processing. The real challenge was praxis — the ability to organize and carry out actions. This is the skill that allows a student to start a task, follow the steps in the right order, and finish it.

Read the full study here:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7143737/

In school, praxis is required for solving multi-step math problems, organizing writing, completing assignments, and working independently. This is why a child can understand a concept, explain it out loud, and still be unable to complete the work on paper. It is not a lack of effort. It is a difficulty turning an idea into an organized action.

The study also showed that this planning and sequencing difficulty exists even when impulsivity is taken into account. In other words, the issue is not simply self-control — it is how the brain organizes complex tasks.

This has major implications for how students are taught. When children are placed in low-structure environments and expected to manage their learning independently too early, many of them are being set up for frustration. Independence is not created by removing support. It is built through modeling, guided practice, and clear step-by-step systems.

At Harmon School, we explicitly teach students how to plan their work, how to break tasks into manageable parts, and how to complete them successfully. We do not assume these skills — we build them every day through structured instruction and executive function coaching.

When students learn the process for completing work, not just the content, their confidence grows, their anxiety decreases, and real independence becomes possible.

That is how the brain learns. And that is why our model works.