testing for ADD

I don’t quite agree with your SLP…I am a Speech therapist who works with kids who are ADD and have CAPD.. The signs are there that he is ADD, low processing speed, word retrieval and memory issues…and one can also have both CAPD and be ADD at the same time…My daughter has both ADD and CAPD However, kids with both disorders have the hardest time learning and reading is particularly tough. He probably needs to be adjusted on his meds too. My daughter has been on concerta for about 4 years now and we have had to “adjust” the medication about every 18 months after she plateaued too. Meds aren’t the only answer for kids with ADD. Behavior modification, and speech and language services will help.

I would recommend an assessment for his auditory processing issues. Some of the assessments will show how vigilant he is on listening and when he breaks down, how he does in background noise, his auditory discrimination etc.. The other thing that can be done is to get an assistive listening device for use in the classroom. This will help with the ADD and the CAPD both.

A “continuous performance test” could be used— these are either self-contained units or computer programs that present a series of symbols, letters, or tones and the child must hit a button every time he sees a particular one, e.g. every time a “2” follows a “5”. They are very boring and the child must really pay attention— they also measure how many times s/he impulsively hits the button when s/he shouldn’t.

When a child is tested for auditory processing, should he be on his meds for ADHD?

Thanks. It certainly makes sense. An IEP ammendment was put in (no response yet) to test him through the school system. He’s in 2nd grade, was evaluated in early first grade through school psych, OT and SLP. The psych, glibly in my opinion, wrote he was strong auditorily - because he scored reasonably on cognition and reasoning. His other auditory scores were awful. Since then he’s gotten the ADHD diagnosis and is on ritalin during school. He had been seeing an ed therapist privately until a few months ago and she said he definitely has auditory processing issues and should do FAst Forward. It was not feasible in our lives to do it after school. Hence, the request for testing through the school. Then, they would apparently consider training someone in our enormous district in Fast Forward. This will take forever. In the interim, I’ve heard research has shown that a program like LMB can stimulate those parts of the brain that would hopefully be affected by FF, without having to do a FF first. I’m anxiously trying to figure out what to do this summer for my son, which will also allow him to have fun and feel he’s on vacation. I cannot afford the intensive LMB at the center.

Good luck with your child.

You can do it at home and it is much cheaper than FF.

Question, how long is each earobic session? After fighting about homework in k and 1st grade, I told the school, and they’ve gone along, that he can do very little work at home. He does his drop of homework, and a couple of minutes of vision therapy, and reads two open court booklets to me each day. I’m so wary of trying an at-home program because I know the resistance I’m going to face.

My non-ADHD younger dd did earobics - regularly with her speech therapist and less frequently with a copy I bought for home reinforcement. She had pre-school speech therapy - unclear speech due to frequent ear infections.

Earobics is easy - games, no pressure. Three levels of difficulty but same games. I paid about $80 for the pc CD game a few years ago. That being said, dd played with it willingly and gravitated towards the games she preferred.

She also is the complete opposite of her older moderately dyslexic (remediated) ADHD sister - younger attended amazingly well very young.

I learned from older dd - Kind. and 1st grade homework could take her (and me) hours upon hours pre-diagnosis & treatment - you can “lead a horse to water but can’t make’m drink”. Pre-diagnosis we had filled our house with educational toys - between the learning differences and ADHD, none of them did any good. Tried to get her to do earobics to build phonemic awareness. She had zero interest in it. All of it - fun educational toys included. Plus, me being in teacher or taskmaster, not mom role is not good - will never try it again. Not worth the price of our relationship.

So, I haven’t read this whole thread, but those are considerations. Might work well and easily. Maybe not.

Amy, here’s a suggestion. What about private tutoring? Do a search for the Orton Gillingham Society or International Dyslexia Society (or association?). They’re the same - I think IDA or S is the new name. You can get your local chapter contact info. and they have names of tutors.

When my dd’s reading difficulties were diagnosed, the neuropsych testing also said possible CAPD (on top of ADHD Inattentive). We lucked out with a great tutor who said ‘give me a few sessions with her and I’ll be able to tell you if she has CAPD. Then you can go through the audiologist testing to confirm CAPD’ and the tutor would have done Fast For Word with dd instead of the OG reading method she was doing.

FFW can be done via internet - regular home sessions connected to a web site - then tutor would have monitored dd’s progress seeing her occasionally too.

FYI - dd’s tutor was expensive but a helluva lot less than LMB. School had promised me (but not in writing on the IEP) they would have Orton the following Sept. - training teachers over the summer. I got dd a tutor just to be safe. The school never got the OG training on a massive level. Instead they hired one OG resource room teacher for the entire 3,500 district population. Gee, how many kids will that one person be able to help?

Thank you so much for this posting. It seems from these boards that everyone is able to work with their children to remediate them. I’ve spent so much time trying to educate myself about LD and ADHD and in that time found professionals who understood how these battles negatively impact the parent child relationship. I do not personally know other ld children - the other add kids at school that I know of are all academically gifted. It’s a relief to hear from another parent that it can’t always happen at home.

The other part I don’t understand - aren’t these challenged kids exhausted after trying so hard all day? Despite my frustration with my son, on one level I always understood that home is a safe place to let go and be mentally exhausted.

Thank you so much for this posting. It seems from these boards that everyone is able to work with their children to remediate them. I’ve spent so much time trying to educate myself about LD and ADHD and in that time found professionals who understood how these battles negatively impact the parent child relationship. I do not personally know other ld children - the other add kids at school that I know of are all academically gifted. It’s a relief to hear from another parent that it can’t always happen at home.

The other part I don’t understand - aren’t these challenged kids exhausted after trying so hard all day? Despite my frustration with my son, on one level I always understood that home is a safe place to let go and be mentally exhausted.

You are dead on right with this.

Home should be a safe haven. They are working so damn hard during the day trying to keep it all together plus working harder than many of their classmates.

I think we as parents try anything and everything in our power to make our kids struggles disappear. Overcompensating can become part of us sometimes inappropriately. Sometimes we can but many times we can’t and/or shouldn’t be the ones to do the actual help - but make sure our kids are surrounded by the right help from other sources.

When my dd was in 2nd grade, she was in supportive reading, supportive math and resource room at school. I schlepped her to her reading tutor twice a week (3+ hours travel and tutor time). Homework took up hours daily. Weekends were spent on school projects we didn’t have the time for during the week. She had no afterschool and limited weekend activities b/c learning took up so much of her time (to me that was already a sacrifice). She needed some down time. My dd maintained a real good attitude throughout all of this -we were telling her school is her “job” and education is important - thankfully she listened to that. I have to give her a helluva lot of credit for being such a great sport when things were so damn difficult for her. It wasn’t “fair” but you deal with it - she learned that major life lesson all too young IMO.

During that time, I would go to all the parent/teacher conferences or just be up at the school and each of her FOUR teachers would suggest “can you please work with her on _____ at home Mrs. X?”. At first, I would work with dd on their suggestions on top of everything else but it was impossible. No down time for her plus negative effect on our relationship. Then I began explaining to them dd was already working real hard and there was zero time unless cutting into her sleep was an option. When they still didn’t quite hear/understand me, after a while I would just politely smile in agreement and say nothing and do what I thought was best for her which many times was NOT acting on their suggestions. It was evident that while they “knew what they were doing” there was no coordination and communication between them in terms of looking at my dd’s entire school picture much less my dd as a “whole child”.

Our role as her parents has evolved to first and foremost guardian of her emotional health and well-being. After that, our roles are case manager for her IEP and school stuff (school thinks they are and so be it - I let them ), communication coordinator for the school stuff, researchers and bill payers for whatever she needs outside of school and vehement all-around advocate. While education is very important, a happy positive family life with children who have a strong sense of self is more important.

Stepping off morning soapbox…..

GL

I can totally understand not being able to work with one’s child. I really think it can be difficult and you are dealt a hand with regard to personalities and sometimes the mesh for working together is just not there. My husband is a super dad but he can not work with my son. They just don’t mesh in that way but totally mesh in other ways. He can coach his lacrosse team and support him in that way.

That being said, the work I have done with my son is focused on his underlying deficits. I have approached it as, “I am here to help you with something, it is really your job not mine.”

Addressing his underlying deficits and giving him the power and responsibility to say when it is too much has made the difference. He has reduced the amount of time he needs to spend on homework significantly because of the improvement in his underlying cognitive and sensory deficits.

Home for him is a place where he gets real help for his underlying deficits without pressured expectations that are impossible for him to attain. I also accomodate him by supporting his writing to allow him to bypass the defiicts so that he can really show what he can do. With further remediation I am hoping there won’t be a need to do this anymore.

I honestly believe that homework needs to take a back seat to real remediation because if you can remediate the deficits, the homework will come easier. It is a give a man a fish or teach him to fish scenario. Give him the skills so that he can do the homework faster and more independantly whenever possible.
I wish they did this in school, but the fact of the matter is, often, they just don’t know how.

My son expects alot from himself. He wants to be successful. He knows mom will help him get there.

I agree with most, probably all you said - HW should take a back seat to remediation, get to the root of the child’s deficits so he/she will be empowered and better understand themselves. While dd’s school was/is great, their help is sometimes too little/too late and I’ve never felt comfortable they were looking at dd’s whole picture.

As I somewhat tried but failed to articulate above - we kinda had our own action plan going unbeknownst to the school. By 2nd grade, the school thought eventually dd would “get” the reading via supportive reading and resource room pull-outs - even though she hadn’t so far. I thought to myself if she could read and as well as her classmates, that’s one less burden for her so secured a private tutor and encouraged her to enjoy regular reading. It paid off in spades across many areas.

That’s when I blew off teacher comments such as:
- memorizing math facts (as if rote memorization via flash cards with me at home would help her ADHD-related memory problems or our relationship -she eventually learned them in 3rd grade thanks to a creative high energy supportive math teacher who used innovative methods)
- sloppy handwriting (oh well)
- brain to paper problems (we tackled that after the reading was down)
- spelling (eventually that may come - I’m still waiting but it is s-l-o-w-l-y coming along).
Perfect homework was not my priority at all. It was kinda similar to behavior mods - don’t overwhelm, focus on one or two issues at a time and give them a chance to succeed.

We have made important strides in independance. In 3rd grade she started becoming independant in class. By 4th grade (now) she is pretty much independant with homework. By comparison, my 2nd grader has been 100%independant since Kindergarten. Often I felt I earned older dd’s progress as much as she did with our time/effort/energy. But that is no longer the case - she is getting there by herself more than ever before. A big part of that was knowing my limitations and when to seek outside help.

The biggest compliment now is when I walk in the door from work and dd is exasperated by her father’s help and she wants ME to “study” her or check her homework. That’s night and day from where she and I were 2-3 miserable years ago. We even add fun when possible - we’ve danced rotation and evolution concepts and she aced that science test. On the other hand, those nights that I’m less capable of helping her, my husband and I are a team and he blissfully takes over.

We both got to the same place and that’s the point of it all. And yes my dd also knows I will help her get there whichever possible way.

I agree, my son and I had many disagreements in the beginning. Homework was a nightmare because I just didn’t get what it was like for him.
It took alot of work for me to do develop the empathy to truely understand what he was going through.
Working with him now improves our relationship rather than destroying it.

He says, “Thanks” even when I am pushing him. I had to learn when to push and how to do it without critisism. It is more, “You can do it.” Than, “Why can’t you do it.”

Your posts struck a chord with me because some at the school think I am robbing his childhood by remediating his deficits. Our school is truely ignorant. They don’t believe deficits can even be remediated.

I have had those comments too—what about time to be a child. It is frustrating, I know, especially when you know what you are doing is making a difference. My son would never be able to do fourth grade work if it wasn’t for all the work we’ve done outside of school work. In some ways, therapy is very efficient—if you can improve underlying processing then homework takes less time!!!

What is a point of all the time in the world if you feel like a failure in school everyday? Even my babysitter has noticed how much happier my son is now—he used to come home from school every day in a bad mood (now only FCATs—our high stake testing put him back in that failure frame of mind).

Sure, I’d rather not do it….and so would he.

beth

Robbing your son’s childhood - sheesh. Remediating deficits as opposed to just helping them get through their school work. What a concept.

I’ve been the overbearing control freak mother who may just be at the root of dd’s problems - per the school “prematurely” securing a reading tutor for her since IMO she was on a real bad downward spiral.

While she still had math, writing and spelling problems which have eventually been helped/improved - the reading progress was evident across all her school work and was the start of repairing her self esteem.

Sometimes I think I am nuts, other times I have a chip on my shoulder. Mostly though I regret not one action - being so closely involved and helping her has made a difference.

And the reason we come to these boards is to find other parents like us. Otherwise, after awhile you might start believing the naysayers. I once gave a copy of Reading Reflex to a friend whose son is LD. Mom was off for the summer but they were “too busy” to do it. Sigh. I guess not all of us want to rearrange our lives around our LD children. We even took Fast Forward on vacation…..and did it!!

Beth

That is true about finding parents like us.

I have alot of friends who are in denial. Funny thing about that is they have seen the very real changes in my son and starting to come around. I have two friends doing IM with their children this summer.

I am the control freak mother at school. When I started I was as layed back as could be. I completely changed after I left the denial stage.

I continue to stump my dd’s school. They’re better at it but still can’t figure me out. Every time they think they have me pegged, they are surprised by my reactions or views.

They once thought I was so overinvolved b/c I was disappointed my dd wasn’t at the top of her class. With all the emotion and righteous indignation a mother can muster, how dare they make her situation about me not her.

Regarding those high stakes 4th grade tests my dd is also facing this year, yes of course I want her to do well, we prepared her as much as possible and we’ve had several conversations regarding testing accomodations - full support on the homefront. If she does well I’ll be enormously proud. If she doesn’t do well - oh well, it’s not the end of the world and the least of my concerns. When I hinted as such to them the school was surprised at how cavalier I was. I don’t care about district rankings and real estate values like they do.

What I do care about is she is now a life-long reader - she looks forward to and enjoys reading. She is an interested curious learner. Those are skills and gifts that will serve her throughout life, not percentile rankings on state elementary grade assessments.

I think the school tends to forget what I think is the most important aspect of education - learning how to learn and enjoying it is invaluable since life is a learning experience.

How’s that for theory and philosophy?