Dazed and confused and about to have nervous breakdown.

She needs a thourough medical/psychoeducational evaluation. There are other possibilities besides adHd/LD to consider as well. You can ask the school to do testing to see if she qualifies for special education, but for most parents it comes up short as far as helping them understand what is really going on with their child. You can start with her regular doctor, but be wary if he wants to immediately prescribe stimulant meds. because as you said, she doesn’t seem to fit neatly into one category. One hallmark of adhd though (and common with LD to) is that one day they can do it, the next day they really can’t. No wonder these kids often get stuck with the lazy/stubborn label! After getting a good dx and treatment plan, you may want to work with a counselor or social worker to help you learn how to be the best parent you can be with this challenging child.

The answer is that you can’t determine what’s going on without some outside help. As the other responder said, a thorough psycho-ed evaluation will reveal whether there are learning issues, emotional issues, or attentional issues that are causing her distress.

Extreme inconsistency is very, very, very common in LD and ADHD. Think of it this way. If you had to, you could probably write with your non-dominant hand for a while. You might even put out some pretty good-looking writing. After a while though, you would get tired from putting forth the extreme effort this takes. YOu would be physically and mentally exhausted and you would reach a point where you just couldn’t do it anymore. That is why kids with LD and ADHD sometimes can do things and other times can’t. The sad thing is that once they put forth that extreme effort, we keep saying to them that they could do it if they tried, when the truth is they are trying much harder than anyone understands. Please get your child evaluated. Don’t wait. The sooner you know what is going on, the sooner you can help. .

Well, I’d suggest that you don’t work on things in the late evening that she will need to need to store it in her mind and be able to retrieve it later. Save those activities for a time of day when her mind is operating more effectively. My son (ADHD-inattentive) reallly loses it after 8 p.m. at night. His mind is all over the place. After that, he’s definitely not holding onto a thought long enough to process it and store in a place he can retrieve it from later. Other tasks that don’t require retention of ideas might be better if homework time goes that late (writing an essay, or book report, or a current events assignment).

As for the 75% of the time, here’s another possible explanation. People with ADHD often have trouble with the executive functions - initiating tasks, sustaining attention, inhibiting impulses, and shifting away to something else (ISIS). Trouble with initiating and sustaining particularly apply for activities that they don’t like or don’t interest them. But they can often hyperfocus on the things that they DO like (often to the point that they can’t make themselves “shift” away from them). Consequently they will not appear to have attention problems when they are involved in something that they enjoy doing.

I also think that the ADHD issues aren’t necessarily problematic 100% of the day. They can be intensifed by fatigue, nutrition, frustration, emotions, and other environmental factors.

I agree with other posters - you need a professional to help you sort this out.

My son is like this. He was terribly inconsistant and it was very frustrating. I just didn’t understand it all of the time.

I would definitely agree that diet, being tired, not enough physical activity, anxiety and a whole host of other environmental factors come into play. When I press my son to try to concentrate he gets anxious and that just has the opposite effect. The best thing to do is to close the book and just do it in the morning. He does much better in the a.m.
One other trick that works for him when he can’t pull it together is to do something physical, run around the house, jump off the stairs a few times etc. I also would hold him tight and lift him under the rib cage. I think some kids just need the vestibular stimulation. For others this just does not work.

When I first took my son to the developmental optometrist he asked about inconsistencies. He told me that after vision therapy the inconsistencies would diminish and they absolutely have.

It has been 8 months of hard work but I really don’t need to moniter his diet as much and he can do things even if he is a little tired. He just seems to have more stamina for mental activities.

He is still hanging on by a thread in some ways and excelling in others. The teacher was commenting to me that he doesn’t show his work when adding and subtracting 4 digit numbers. He got them all correct on the test. I think she thought he cheated because there are times he still will not know basic addition facts. He can add in his head really well when he is ‘on,’ problem is when he isn’t ‘on’ he can’t do 2+2.

Thanks to vision therapy and other things we have done he is mostly on and rarely off. It used to be the other way around.

Where in Texas are you?

She needs to have a complete independant eval. It’s probably a combo of all three ADHD, LD and stubborness due to constant school work related problems. Inconsistent work is typical. To us without these issues it seems like their faking or messing up on purpose. Not so. It’s just hard for us to understand. Their minds are wired differently.

Support her, encourage her, empathize with her. It’s hard being her.

I just wanted to say thank you very much for all the information. I’m especially interested in the vision therapy. We are now actually on the road to testing further and trying different methods with my daughter. Hopefully we will come up with something.

Also, someone asked “where in TEXAS” I live in east TX

[quote=”carol23”]I just wanted to say thank you very much for all the information. I’m especially interested in the vision therapy. We are now actually on the road to testing further and trying different methods with my daughter. Hopefully we will come up with something.

Also, someone asked “where in TEXAS” I live in east TX[/quote]

Just be aware that the mainstream medical community does not support vision therapy as a treatment for ADHD. In fact, vision therapists (ethical ones at least) do not claim to treat ADHD. Instead, VT focuses on symptoms that look like ADHD but aren’t.

I agree that she needs a full eval, not just a vision eval. These symptoms are more encompassing than that. Take her to a neuropsychologist. One other thing, I would not keep her up until 10 to do homework. Sleep deprivation can add to these problems. If you make 9 her bedtime, for example, quit the homework then and write the teacher a note.

Janis

[quote=”Janis”]I agree that she needs a full eval, not just a vision eval. These symptoms are more encompassing than that. Take her to a neuropsychologist. One other thing, I would not keep her up until 10 to do homework. Sleep deprivation can add to these problems. If you make 9 her bedtime, for example, quit the homework then and write the teacher a note.

Janis[/quote]

The bad thing about quitting the homework is that her teachers–regardless of the fact that they know what’s going on–will still count points off and hold her responsible for her work. I know that she doesn’t need to be up that late. And Believe me, I felt terrible, we are just trying so hard to teach her these things. Last night it was how many cups are in a gallon. I showed her over and over again how to get the answer, even told her what the answer was, she still couldn’t get it. It’s like she blocks me out. Again, I know that this is part of the AD/HD but it is still very frustrating. I’m learning from my mistakes as I go along, just like all other parents have done. As far as vision therapy, I’m not relying on any one thing to help my daughter but for me medication is going to be a last resort.

I agree about the hour. I work a lot with adults in math, and if they’re tired, they will forget *everything.* I have learned that no, they are not periodic morons — they’re just past their saturation point.
It’s also important to have a more concrete version of it —can she make a poster (even if it’s the size of an index card or piece of paper) of a gallon with the 8 cups marked off as if it were a measuring cup? If she’s got a better visual memory that could stick.

OF course, in college you are also allowed to withdraw from a class if it is going by too fast and repeat it, and there’s slightly less stigma (especially when you realize that at least half the people in the class have to do that — and yes, the college is exploring other options).

Now may be the time to transcend the teachers. Which is more important, grades or learning? If she can learn to value learning over other peoples’ judgements it can be one of those “what does not kill me, makes me stronger” situations. No college cares what your third grade scores were — but if she doesn’t go at her pace so she can actually *learn* this stuff, she won’t be able to do the stuff that colleges will care about.

I cannot explain this oddity, but I can share it.

My 11 yr old is ADDinattentive. He often appears not to be getting something and, if one backs off, a day or two later he somehow magically gets it

His 2nd gr spelling resource teacher noticed this. Theyd start the spelling list on Mon, and M and T, she’d be pulling her hair out over him as he couldnt spell a single word and seemed to regress as they went along. Thursday she would compliment me on how much my working with him had helped.

Well, after 2-3 times of this scenario, I fessed up that I didnt work with him on spelling AT ALL. I had decided it wasnt worth it. Yet SOMEHOW he was making this progress at the end of the week and getting As and Bs on his Friday tests.

Go figure!

I’m homeschooling this year and I really see it in his math. He frowns, is clueless ,and I’m on the net running off worksheets for extra practice and the next day we sit down and ………he does perfectly

Odd little buggers, arent they?

Are they talking about holding her back? Whats all this failing if she doesnt get Bs stuff? Sounds like a lot of pressure to me

[quote=”marycas”]I cannot explain this oddity, but I can share it.

Are they talking about holding her back? Whats all this failing if she doesnt get Bs stuff? Sounds like a lot of pressure to me[/quote]

She made all D’s on her repord card for the first nine weeks. After I averaged everything she will need to average a B in every class to pass for the year. But regardless of that she has a test at the end of the year (TAC) that she must pass. IF she doesn’t, is won’t matter how much her grades have improved between now and then. At this point all I’m concerned about is teaching her what we can. I know that rushing her and pressuring her will do no good, or make things much worse.

I hate to say this but it’s nice to have someone that can relate to this. My mom doesn’t understand our difficulty since I had no trouble in school, she actually at times thinks it’s funny….my payback or something.

Right now I am researching Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia as possible reasons for our difficulty. It’s crazy that we actually have symtoms of AD/HD and both of those 2 LD.

[quote=”Anonymous”][quote=”marycas”]I cannot explain this oddity, but I can share it.

Are they talking about holding her back? Whats all this failing if she doesnt get Bs stuff? Sounds like a lot of pressure to me[/quote]

She made all D’s on her repord card for the first nine weeks. After I averaged everything she will need to average a B in every class to pass for the year. But regardless of that she has a test at the end of the year (TAC) that she must pass. IF she doesn’t, is won’t matter how much her grades have improved between now and then. At this point all I’m concerned about is teaching her what we can. I know that rushing her and pressuring her will do no good, or make things much worse.

I hate to say this but it’s nice to have someone that can relate to this. My mom doesn’t understand our difficulty since I had no trouble in school, she actually at times thinks it’s funny….my payback or something.

Right now I am researching Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia as possible reasons for our difficulty. It’s crazy that we actually have symtoms of AD/HD and both of those 2 LD.[/quote]

I really must add that for my son with attention problems and signs of dyscalcia which really amounted to a visual spatial and sequencing deficit I saw the biggest bang for the buck come from interactive metronome.

There have been studies that support it’s use especially for sequencing and attention issues.

If you could only do one intervention I would recommend this one above all others.

Vision therapy just built upon the gains from IM.

I think neuropsych testing can help in dealing with the school but I have not found many neuropsychs who are up on the latest ways to remediate deficits. I think many rely to heavily on meds. I am very glad I did not pursue meds for my son.

I may use them in the future if he struggles in middle school but for now he really doesn’t need them and I have a few more interventions I would try before going there.

We also found that the stress to perform created a ton of anxiety for our son, but it didn’t look like anxiety. It looked like dysgraphia and /or ADD-int. Now that we’ve addressed the anxiety (nonmedically) these other 2 issues have eased considerably.

Imagine yourself trying to learn something completely new and strange to you, say Chinese. Someone drills you in Chinese characters for three hours after your daughter is in bed. For the first hour you are interested and you get some of them. But they keep loading more and more and more strange characters onto you, and getting more and more frustrated and yelling at you for not remembering. By midnight I would suspect that you would lose it too. By that point if someone asked you to write your own name you might blank out.

In other words, blanking out from fatigue and stress is *normal*.

For a first step, let the kid get enough sleep and eat well and have some outdoor time every day. Tell her that you are not going to pay any attention *at all* to the school grades. (Look, can it get any worse than it is now??) Tell the teacher point blank that the stress is damaging your child and you are working on getting her problems identified and getting her help, but meanwhile you do not want her to be pressured and threatened. Go to the principal and the school board and make loud noises if the teacher puts inappropriate pressure on her such as public threats. Yes, she can still get failing grades, but they are not the end of the world and they do not define her as a person.

No promises, there may still be some real problems to address, but in some cases just having permission to relax and be human can turn a child around.

Then take all the good advice here and do have her evaluated properly.

Then get some good tutoring and/or therapy that addresses what she is missing. If she can’t distinguish p from t, then she will have trouble in reading and writing and spelling and will fall behind in other ways. If she can’t read and sound out words properly, then her math will suffer because she can’t understand the directions. If she doesn’t have a good grasp of numbers, then she won’t remember whether the answer was 6 or 16.
As a general principle, if she is missing one of the foundation blocks from kindergarten or Grade 1, then you and the teacher can work until you are blue in the face (as you have) on Grade 3, but these new bricks can’t stay up in thin air with no foundation underneath them.

[quote=”carol23

The bad thing about quitting the homework is that her teachers–regardless of the fact that they know what’s going on–will still count points off and hold her responsible for her work. .[/quote]

Try this: ask the teachers how long they think she should be spending on the homework she is assigned, then spend that amount of time and no longer on it. Send in a note when she doesn’t finish saying that she worked for x minutes on the assignment, but was not able to finish.