The Livescribe Smartpen: Helping Students with ADHD

October is ADHD Awareness Month and we wanted to bring to light an incredible assistive technology tool for helping students with ADHD in the classroom – the Livescribe smartpen.

We’ve shared the quote above at many Livescribe trainings, and although we’re not sure of the original source, it describes the smartpen in the classroom perfectly. It does exactly that – attends to the teacher by recording all of the audio that is taking place – when a student gets distracted or loses focus. Many students with ADHD have found the Livescribe smartpen to be a lifesaver.

The smartpen is a great backup system for not only helping students with ADHD, but all students that tend to lose focus during class. This may include gifted students that are busy doodling their next Lego creation in the margins of their papers or even those twice exceptional students – gifted with ADHD!  In addition, for those students who tend to focus much more on writing down every word of notes, the smartpen allows them to concentrate on processing the new information without worrying about taking down every word.

Introducing assistive technology tools such as the Livescribe smartpen to students in the lower grades allows them to practice using the tools with supervision and instruction on the most effective way to implement them, which hopefully sets them up for independent success in their future endeavors.

The video below is a great testament to how a Livescribe smartpen can boost the confidence of a student with ADHD and help them be successful in the classroom.