capd or add will ritalin help

If your child only has capd, ritalin won’t help with the attention problems. It is possible that a child could have both capd and be add, in which case ritalin could help.

Inattention and distractability are common to both conditions.

My son has CAPD and is inattentive and distractable also. We are currently working with the school to try and get a sound field system installed. This helps with attention for kids who have trouble with background noise. Another alternative is an individual FM system.

We are also considering doing Interactive Metronome program which helps with attention problems.

Ritalin has the potential to help anyone focus better— ADHD, CAPD, or “average kid”— just like many adults use caffeine when they need to focus. It is hard to tease apart different disorders and many of the symptoms overlap. So yes, Ritalin might help, but it wouldn’t do anything for the CAPD but cover up some of its symptoms. I would deal with the CAPD first (you’ll get lots of advice here on effective methods). If the inattentiveness and distractiblity remain, then look into ADHD/Ritalin. PattiM has a lot of experience in this area and posts on this board frequently.

and stimulants do help with the focusing. What happens with a person who has CAPD is they have to spend so much energy on decoding what they hear, trying to me super attentive to the visual cues that they get tired and will either tune out, give up or get antsy… ADD and CAPD do not disappear, they are disorders that one lives with the rest of their life.

With my kiddo I thought she just had CAPD but ADD was a major part of the problem…Put it this way you can only get so far with a kid in regards to remediation and if you don’t have their attention you won’t make any progress at all.

Another parent told me yesterday after her middle schooler started meds, that she couldn’t believe the change in her teen’s behavior and attention, she did her homework without needing her parents hounding and helping. The mom wished she had done the meds when she was younger, her teacher said, she was alert, responsive, smiling etc… The psychologist told the mom, “It’s great that she is responding to meds but the sad thing is that we can’t bring back the time she missed when she was tuned out…all we can do now is to work like crazy to fill in the information gaps as much as we can.” The mom said, “My gosh, that is exactly what the tutor told me…”

Am I a rocket scientist??? Nah, far from it, just a person who has lived with this problem my whole life…and learned from my own school of hard knocks including making plenty of mistakes.

Get an assistive listening device, Preferential seating in the classroom, written directions to compensate for what she misses auditorially also have her listen to books on tape, music, whatever you can to build up her auditory memory. Good luck to you.

One question to ask is whether there are attention problems when the task *isn’t* auditory. If a processing problem means that in school you have to try to do two cognitive tasks at once — make sense of what you hear, *and* learn whatever you’re supposed to be learning from it — it’s going to look like you’re having trouble paying attention. That’s pretty consistent across the human race. If she’s got attention issues elsewhere, too, it’s definitely worth checking out the ADD angle.

I have a friend who has LDs and neurological issues and absolutely, definitely, Ritalin helps her think more clearly. SHe has her very own “logic” when it’s worn off, especially if she’s tired. It’s hard to believe until you see it. On the other hand, for other folks it really just helps ‘em focus longer.

My son who is 14 just got a prescription for ritalin, he refuses to take it. We are getting an FM sound field system, also.
I agree, lots of written notes provided by the teacher will help.We just got this on his ed plan.