SAT or ACT? Which is better for ADHD kids?

Midwestmomofboys
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:49:01 +0000

My son was not diagnosed ADHD until after high school graduation (we finally wanted to confront his demons before he went off to college and prepare him for the challenges).

He did only ACT – after taking PSAT twice, sophomore and junior year, was pretty clear that the PSAT/SAT format played to his challenges not strengths. There was simply now way he could have sat and focused for the 5 hour marathon that the SAT with writing section can be. Plus, he handled the ACT format, test what you know, much better. Of course his scores still reflected his underlying academic strengths and weaknesses – 35 Reading and 25 Math . . .

My research at the time suggested that getting accommodations with ACT was more difficulty than SAT, though again, we did not have testing done until after grad so were not in a position to request any during junior/senior year of testing.