Education and Spanish alumna highlights unique strengths in people with ADHD

Mallory Band ’14 was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety when she was 8 years old. For her, it impacts every part of her life, but she initially didn’t understand what exactly those diagnoses meant and how to leverage her specific strengths. After graduating from The College of Wooster, Band combined a passion for education with her own experiences. She created her own educational community where she helps others with ADHD and learning differences understand their own brains and reach their full potential. 

Initially drawn to Wooster by the close-knit community, Band toured the College while in Ohio for a softball tournament.  “I don’t know what it was, but I got a feeling just being on the campus. I felt like I could see myself being there,” she explained. During her four years, in addition to completing majors in Spanish and education, Band participated in the Alpha Gamma Phi sorority and was a three-year member of the Fighting Scots women’s basketball team. “A big part of what Wooster stands for is being comfortable with who you are and immersing yourself within a community,” Band said.  

After graduating from Wooster, Band did what many education majors do: taught in the classroom. Her first years after Wooster she taught Spanish to elementary school students in Washington, D.C. However, after six years, Band realized that she did not want to take a traditional approach to education. In 2020, she started attending graduate school full-time at Johns Hopkins University, graduating with a master’s degree in education with focuses in urban education and mind, brain, and teaching. These helped Band not only understand how to be a better educator, but also how her own brain and the brains of other people with ADHD function. 

As she finished graduate school, Band joined a consulting group, serving as an executive function coach. Executive functions are cognitive skills that help people to achieve their goals, such as working memory, planning, and impulse control. People with ADHD often have difficulty with executive functioning skills, so coaches, like Band, help provide people with tangible tools they can implement and transfer to all aspects of their life. But while working for the consulting firm, Band realized that she could transform her skills into her own business. 

“I used to like to hide and be told what to do,” Band said. But through self-reflection she explained, “I realized that with my ADHD, I actually like to be in charge and make the decisions,” which led to her founding Band Together Education. Founded in 2022, Band Together Education provides executive function coaching, tutoring, and parent coaching to help people with ADHD and learning differences reach their full potential by tapping into their unique strengths and giving them skills for success. On any given day, Band works in-person with clients, conducts online coaching sessions, or advocates on behalf of clients at their school or workplace for clients ranging from middle schoolers to adults.  

Band finds that her experiences at Wooster continue to help her in her career, allowing her to build relationships with clients and empathize with their experiences. Completing her Independent Study, for example, helped her to better empathize with clients and teach them how to break large projects down into smaller steps. “I can help my clients think, ‘Here’s the thing we want to achieve. What are all the steps we need to take,’” Band explained. “It’s really helpful to be able to draw on past experiences and successes.” 

Ultimately, Band believes that the most important lesson she learned at Wooster was how to build relationships with other people. “If you can’t make a connection with the person you’re working with, or if you can’t build trust with them, you’re not going to have any progress,” she explained. “So, when I’m working with clients, I think back to when I was at Wooster, when I was in high school, whatever it was, and I think ‘what did I need at that age?’” 

Posted in Alumni on April 21, 2025.