Reference: Barker, C., Yorke, K. I., Mak, E., Draper, E. C., & Mazerolle, E. L. (2024). Experimental evaluation of the impact of lived experience and personal story on neuroscience knowledge translation effectiveness: Sharing the neuroscience of ADHD with pre-service teachers. Mind, Brain, and Education, 18(1), 125–134.

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Many of us have or know someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition in which individuals might struggle to stay focused on what they need to focus on, may exhibit hyperactive energy levels, or behave impulsively. I myself have ADHD. I’ve learned a lot from my own and others’ experiences with ADHD, and there are a lot of wonderful and unique things that come from those lived experiences. However, the experience can also be debilitating—particularly in traditional education settings. Teachers play a crucial role in creating learning environments where students with ADHD can thrive. To address this, Barker et al. (2024) explored the role of teachers, and how they educate other teachers about ADHD through the use of personal stories about having ADHD. They also explored the effect of having an individual who has ADHD presenting the information. 

What Did the Researchers Do?

Barker et al. (2024) recruited 75 participants in training to become teachers, and had them take part in a workshop to learn about ADHD. All of the content and activities addressed information about ADHD, including the strengths of individuals with ADHD, as well as popular ADHD myths. Even aside from the research performed in this study, the workshop was intended to be a tool to help participants improve their teaching practices as they continue to learn more about ADHD.

The 75 participants were split into four groups, described in the table below:

	Personalized Condition	Depersonalized Condition
Lived Experience	Presenter has ADHD and told personal stories	Presenter has ADHD and did not tell personal stories
Without Lived Experience	Neurotypical presenter told personal stories	Neurotypical presenter did not tell personal stories

Participants in each group completed an initial survey (pretest), engaged in the workshop, and then completed a second survey (posttest), to see how their opinions and knowledge of ADHD changed after the workshop. The surveys contained both open-ended and multiple-choice questions that addressed these perspectives, participant experiences with individuals who have ADHD, and strategies they use to help students with ADHD learn. 

The research team ended up with an extensive amount of data to address their research question. They broke down examining these data into two parts: dealing with the multiple-choice surveys (quantitative analysis) and examining the open-ended question responses (qualitative analysis).

For the quantitative analysis, the researchers looked at the changes for each individual group in ratings on the multiple choice questions from before the workshop to after the workshop. Then, they took those changes within the groups, and compared those changes across groups.

For the qualitative analysis, the research team used specialized software to help them find patterns in the participants’ responses. First, individual ideas were labeled in individual question responses (called coding). These ideas from across all of the survey responses were then compared to each other to find the major ideas (called themes). These codes and themes were developed collaboratively with participation and discussion from the whole research team.

What Did They Find?

After the workshop, the quantitative analysis showed participants experienced overall shifts in their beliefs about ADHD, with decreases in seeing it as a willpower or discipline issue, a punishable classroom behavior, or something caused by social factors, and increases in recognizing its neurological basis. Differences also emerged between the four study groups—those exposed to personal stories during the workshop were more likely to attribute ADHD to the brain and less likely to see social factors as a cause. Notably, personal stories were especially effective when shared by a speaker with ADHD, making the neuroscience of ADHD more accessible. However, when personal stories were not used, workshops led by a speaker without ADHD were rated more favorably.

The qualitative analysis revealed that participants gained a broad understanding of supporting students with ADHD, including recognizing student needs, adjusting teaching practices, and seeking additional resources. They emphasized that ADHD stems from an interaction between the brain and behavior rather than being the student’s fault, highlighting the importance of neuroscience in equitable education. Personal stories played a key role in fostering empathy, leading participants to reconsider their teaching approaches and listen more closely to students’ individual experiences. Ultimately, the workshop deepened participants’ understanding of ADHD’s varied presentations and reinforced the value of framing support around students’ strengths, especially given ADHD’s prevalence in classrooms. 

What Does This Mean for You?

Teachers can learn from personal stories and lived experiences. What matters most is engaging the audience. The burden of educating others about ADHD does not have to solely be placed on the shoulders of those with lived experience; subject-matter experts are also capable presenters, potentially enabling these workshops to be available to a larger and wider audience. Ultimately, we can include neurodivergent people in education without placing the burden on that population. By empathetically highlighting the strengths of those individuals, dispelling myths, and valuing lived experiences, we can reduce the stigma of such conditions and create systems in which neurodiverse individuals can thrive.