Contrary to popular belief, “concentrating and sitting still to be able to focus,” does not apply to ADHD students. New research by the University of Central Florida shows that children with ADHD learn better when left to squirm, fidget, wiggle or tap.

Dating back then, teachers and parents aim to pacify and soothe ADHD children. “It’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing for a majority of children with ADHD,” study author and head of UCF Psychology’s Children’s Learning Clinic Mark Rapport said in a press release.

“The typical interventions target reducing hyperactivity. It’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing for a majority of children with ADHD,” said one of the study’s authors, Mark Rapport, head of the Children’s Learning Clinic at the University of Central Florida.

The study at the UCF clinic included 52 boys ages 8 to 12. Twenty-nine of the children had been diagnosed with ADHD and the other 23 showed normal development. Each child was asked to perform a series of tasks designed to gauge their working memory – the system for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning and comprehension.

All of the children were shown a series of jumbled numbers and a letter that flashed onto a computer screen, then asked to put the numbers in order, followed by the letter. A high-speed camera recorded the kids to record their actions and attention to their task, alongside observers who manually records the actions of the children.

Rapport has done a previous research that had already shown that the excessive movement that’s a trademark of ADHD children – thought to be present always – is actually apparent only when they need to use the brain’s executive brain functions, especially their working memory.

The new study conducted goes an extra mile, proving the hyperactivity of ADHD children and their excessive movements serves a purpose. “What we’ve found is that when they’re moving the most, the majority of them perform better,” Rapport said. “They have to move to maintain alertness.”

The research has implies how parents and teachers should deal with ADHD kids, stating that, “The message isn’t ‘Let them run around the room,’ but you need to be able to facilitate their movement so they can maintain the level of alertness necessary for cognitive activities.”

The study, published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology further confirms the allegation that hyperactive movement in ADHD children serves a purpose. In other words, the hyperactivity that has always been considered wrong in students helps them maintain alertness in class — it only needs to be directed.

“What we’ve found is that when they’re moving the most, the majority of them perform better,” said Rapport. The opposite goes for children without ADHD, however. They also moved more during tests, though they performed worse.