ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a mental disorder associated with impairment of brain growth and development. It is estimated that 5 in 100 children have ADHD making it one of the most common disorders in childhood (1). The exact cause of ADHD is currently unknown although genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors seem to play a role in the development of ADHD (5). ADHD is generally considered to be a behavioural disorder where children are characterised into 3 types as either having difficulties paying attention, hyperactivity, inappropriate impulsive social behaviours or a combination of the three (1,2). Individuals may have trouble focusing on tasks, organising themselves and forgetfulness although instances of individuals hyper focusing onto a task is also a common symptom (3). Clinical symptoms typically manifest before the age of 12 where a child psychiatrist or paediatrician observes the typical symptoms affecting the child’s behaviour in two or more environments i.e. home and school for more than 6 months (4). Although symptoms can be treated with medication, behavioural therapy focusing on adapting and changing behaviour is also a valid treatment option. We asked ourselves whether it’s possible to help the behavioural therapy process by developing an app to help organise individuals into a fixed schedule whereby they are rewarded for completing tasks on a given day. Our target market is individuals attending school between the ages of 5 to 13 i.e. before secondary schooling starts. Although we intend to extend our app to help individuals aged 13 and above, the current primary focus is developing a foundation for our productivity app.

https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd

https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/difference-between-add-and-adhd#inattention

https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/add-adhd/understanding-adhd

https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/a-z/resource/9/adhd-in-children

https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/guide/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd#2

How can our app support ADHD individuals?

Oliva was able to provide insight into this. Individuals may feel overwhelmed if a list of tasks are just presented to them. These individuals also need constant reminders to stay on task and be put on time constraints. Our app hopes to address this issue by assigning relative importance of tasks, the most important tasks are to be completed first and will appear first with special rewards. Whereas less important tasks or tasks that are not urgent should carry less incentive to do them first. ADHD individuals can hyper focus on tasks if you present it in the right manner. Further research into how to present the task will be conducted by interview conduct by the school Oliva was employed by. Being reminded to stay on task and using an alarm system is what is currently being used by Sasha when she interacts with an ADHD individual in a home setting. We will be implementing this methodology into our app to hopefully keep individuals focused.