Seating Arrangement and Eye Contact

• One easy thing that teachers can do to help ensure the success of students with APD is to allow them to sit near the front of the room. Doing this will limit the number of distractions that come between the student and the sounds he or she is trying to process. Seating students with APD close to the front of the room will also help the teachers maintain occasional or constant eye contact with these students which has been shown to increase understanding.
  
  

Repeat and Clarify Instructions

• Instructions are often the most difficult thing for students with APD to process, and unfortunately it is nearly impossible to become successful in a classroom setting if students do not understand the instructions being given. Therefore it is important to restate and clarify instructions several times. This will allow students with APD multiple opportunities to hear and process the information. Healthy Kids also suggests asking students to repeat instructions back to you in their own words to further ensure understanding.
  
  

Reduce Background Noise

• Students who do not suffer from APD can often become distracted by excess background noise in their learning environments; this distraction is intensified for students with APD. This being said, another effective strategy to ensure success for students with APD is to reduce the background noise in classrooms. Teachers can do this by closing the classroom door, controlling the side conversations of students, moving student desks away from air conditioners and other equipment and playing music only on a limited basis during non-instructional time.
  
  

Use Visual Aides

• Because students with APD have difficulties processing auditory information, visual aids offer an alternative way for students to process information that may otherwise be unattainable for them. Visual aides can be more than just written directions: they can be charts that organize information for students; lists of ingredients, steps, or tasks to complete; pictures or drawings of concepts; or graphic organizers that the students can use personally to organize information.