Fidgeting May Benefit Children With A.D.H.D.

New York Times
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS JUNE 24, 2015 5:45 AM
Past studies had suggested that children with A.D.H.D. concentrate better and improve academically if they are physically active during the school day. But that research had focused primarily on how to re-channel the children’s hyperactivity.

Dr. Schweitzer, who treats many children with A.D.H.D., had begun to wonder whether that emphasis was misplaced. Perhaps experiments should look into why the children were so hyperactive in the first place.

To find out, she and her colleagues gathered 26 boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 17 who had a diagnosis of A.D.H.D.; the researchers independently confirmed the diagnosis. Then they recruited an additional 18 children without A.D.H.D.

All of the children visited the group’s lab and were outfitted with an unobtrusive activity monitor on one ankle that could track how often and how intensely the children bobbled their leg, which is a good marker of fidgeting. 

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They found that the more intensely that the children with A.D.H.D. wiggled and fidgeted — the more ferociously they bobbled their legs — the more accurate their answers were.

let them squirm and fidget and bounce and jiggle and generally maintain that constant, disconcerting restiveness, if you want them also to be better able to concentrate.

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