Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), the leading national resource for individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), announced its partnership with web-based tool provider Public Consulting Group to bring educators on-demand access to resources that will best support students with the learning disorder.

PCG is the group behind Pepper, the online, interactive professional development platform that is already used by 4,000 school districts nationwide.

"The initial program launch will feature CHADD's Teacher to Teacher program, which helps educators identify common ADHD-related learning problems and proven classroom techniques to enhance school success for students with ADHD,” said CHADD in a statement.

The partnership is a first-of-its-kind effort to provide teachers with proven tools to help students diagnosed with ADHD succeed.

For those unfamiliar, ADHD is a learning disorder that affects roughly one in 10 U.S. children. Children who suffer from the learning disorder have a difficulty focusing and remembering things, which in turn can affect a child’s success in school in a major way.

CHADD hopes that providing teachers convenient, on-demand access to the right resources, students with ADHD will receive the supports they need.

"We recognize that there is a great need for ADHD supports in the classroom. Teachers are overworked. They're so busy but at the same time, they want to help their students with ADHD succeed. To do this, they need access to the right resources, and that access needs to be convenient. Thanks to Pepper's content curation expertise, we can now offer our Teacher-to-Teacher program to teachers on an interactive platform they can access 24/7, at their own pace,” said Michael MacKay, President of CHADD in a statement.

These kinds of tools build on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest recommendations on ADHD; in early May, the CDC released a report urging individuals to focus on behavioral treatments for those suffering from ADHD before turning to medication.

The CDC said that 49 percent of children with ADHD are only receiving medication for the disorder as opposed to accompanying behavioral treatment, a trend it said is alarming. 

Having access to extra supports in the classroom seems to be something the CDC would stand by given its latest report. 

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

6/30/2016