Had 1st conf. at new school. Need to brainstorm with you guy

Karen,

You know what? I’d be cautious about meds, too, since there is so much controversy. But I think the easiest way to determine if they’d make a big difference is simply to try a trial of medication. It doesn’t mean forever and I don’t think there are any reasons to think that a trial will harm the child. But I know of not other way to determine if the child needs them. One thing I’d do, though is NOT tell the teacher when he is on them. Tell her that soemtime during the year you may try them and that you’d like a brief daily report on his attention. That way, she can’t have any bias toward knowing whether he is on meds or not.

Janis

Sorry Janis, but I disagree with not telling the teacher, based upon my personal experience with a student starting meds…which was rather scary, due to immediate (within an hour), side effects. Admittedly, this student’s reaction was rare, but I’d really rather have a heads up to be on the lookout for issues.

Rather than not telling the teacher, I’d ask the prescribing physician to set up a blind study over the period of 3 weeks to one month, whereby you administer the meds, but aren’t aware of the dosages or which meds are being ingested on a daily basis. I really like it when they include a placebo as one of the trials, because it really gives everyone a fair picture. You’ll be able to get the same effect as not telling the teacher, but you’ll also have the benefit of the teacher being aware and watchful for side effects from the medication. Since prescribing medication for attention is not an exact science, trying various dosages levels and/or medications can help to determine what is optimal for your child (and leaves the possibility that the teacher will find that no meds is as good as any other option.)

Karyn

I would definitely go the meds route…I spent $1,000’s on remediation before we realized that ADD-Inattentive was a big part of the problem. Take it from me, it isn’t fair to him because he doesn’t know what it feels like to focus, all he knows is he is struggling and he can’t keep up and it is very depressing for kids to see the kids around them getting stuff and they are in left field..

Thanks all - I didn’t mean for this thread to become a meds vs. non-meds debate because I think both approaches are valid and complementary. Pattim, I think of your history and advice all the time, and I do worry that if we medicate him later we will regret not having done it sooner.

However, our psychiastrist is reluctant to medicate him for valid medical /psychiatric reasons, and since the school doesn’t see it as a big enough problem to get in the way of learning we want to explore other options.

He seems to be mostly distracted by his own thoughts - which are coherent and interesting. he’s not distracted by others, noise etc. The question is can he control his attention level and turn off the internal dialogue?

In this situation I would try PACE rather than another round of IM. PACE trains attention and focusing skills, among others, and is more broadly-based than IM. IM is a great program but, if you didn’t see much result from the first round, I would try something else.

Website for PACE is http://www.processingskills.com

Nancy

Audiblox would give the attention/focus results too. It would also work on processing speed.
I am a believer of trying other methods before using meds. I have seen kids on meds who don’t seem happy and are like zombies at times. Their parents insist they need them otherwise they are all over the place. I would rather try alternatives.

[quote=”TS”]Audiblox would give the attention/focus results too. It would also work on processing speed.
I am a believer of trying other methods before using meds. I have seen kids on meds who don’t seem happy and are like zombies at times. Their parents insist they need them otherwise they are all over the place. I would rather try alternatives.[/quote]

Only children who are on an improper dose will appear somewhat “flat” or quiet. On the right medication at the right dose, in a child whose symptoms are severe enough to warrant medication, there is NO change in personality, except that the kid now has a chance to be successful because he is not so easily frustrated and distracted. If the medication is right, the child will seem exactly like himself. It is a great myth that medication will take away some essential characteristic of a person. I think this parent has tried alternatives to medications and now is trying to decide whether medication is another option or not. Why make her feel guilty about doing that? What’s your agenda?

well actually. I was looking for advice on non-medication alternatives. My feeling is that we have a time period while he is in this optimal special setting to explore other options. (presuming of course that his attention is adequate for this school , which for right now it is)

Since the school provides remediation and a small class size, it gives us a chance to tease out the cause of the attention problem, and at this point in the school year its too soon to say. For my ds I think there are many different things going on, and I want to attack them one by one until its clear what the answer on meds is.. Right now no professional we’ve consulted (and there have been many) think its appropriate for him.

So I am interested in persuing a PACE/audioblox type of intervention. Given that he has visual processing deficits (currently being worked on thru VT) and seems to have auditory strengths, and has motor planning/vestibular issues at the root of many of his problems is there one I should consider over the other? Thanks in advance for all your advice!!

My “agenda” was trying to help. What is your “agenda” for posting a response such as that?

I have a student right now who has been on meds for 6 years. I have voiced my concerns to the parents about her zombieness state some days in my room. The parents insist that it is fine as I would have her bouncing off the walls if she didn’t take her meds, and they do not want her bouncing off the walls at home. I insist that currently things are not right. I have not received any questionaires to fill out and return to the doctor. I will have to check into my options now as what I can do. This really disturbs me.

BTW
I have seen other students too on meds and they are emotionless and “zombies.”

So, I guess my point is that I would rather try alternatives first than subject a child to such strong drugs that could cause such changes in them. Drugs would be my absolute last resort.

>However, our psychiastrist is reluctant to medicate him for valid medical /psychiatric reasons, and since the school doesn’t see it as a big enough problem to get in the way of learning we want to explore other options.

CHADD may have list (chadd.org) of doctors? As if the doctor is unwilling to prescribe for any reason, I don’t know that he is a good source of info. I’d like one that will say “no” to an invalid reason and “yes” to a good one. And be able to figure out what that would be.

>He seems to be mostly distracted by his own thoughts - which are coherent and interesting. he’s not distracted by others, noise etc. The question is can he control his attention level and turn off the internal dialogue?

I don’t know but I think ADD inattentive may be harder to deal with sans medication. You can do a number of things for the ADHD that might be helpful but the list for the ADD inattentive I think is shorter. There may be/prolly is some info online. There is also a David on the ADHD parents forum (here) that is not using meds, might be helpful IF you really want to go this route. I believe this is your own decision and you should maybe find a doctor that is willing to work with you on this.

—des

Can you request an eval. by a behavioral specialist at the special ed. school?? There are many dx that have inattention as a symptom and it would seem useful to do an assessment before starting on a treatment. If you have read anything by Russell Barkley you know that he considers inattentive ADD to be quite different from ADHD and to be less amenable to med. tx…if the cause is psychiatric(anxiety, etc.) then treatment of a different type would be better. If you are paying for this school program yourself, I would push them to provide complete assessment of all of his issues. You will never find more optimal class size and attention to student than in a class of 6, so if he’s still not performing at his ability level, I’d look for another assessment.

Karen,

The major issue with therapies is whether the child can do them. We did PACE and had little impact because my son really wasn’t able to be successful with the exercises. After doing Nueronet, IM was a great success. I am not sure it would have been before hand.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is possible that IM would be more successful now that you have done other therapies. As I recall, your son wasn’t able to get the numbers down with IM as opposed to being successful without any effect. PACE, I think works best when sensory motor issues are resolved. It is primarily a cognitive program. This was the problem for us—we misjudged the extent to which his sensory issues were resolved.

Audioblox is strong on the visual end of things—not so much on the auditory. That is why we did PACE as well as PACE seemed more efficient.
Beth

my son is ADDinattentive only and we utilize meds. I homeschooled this year and tried going without, but I saw that faraway look too many times

Are the teachers ACTIVELY working to keep him engaged. I think it is NOT on the mind of a teacher when a kid is ADD as opposed to ADHD. My son is the model student-sits quietly, causing no problems. How do they know he is a thousand miles away?

I also think it would be easy to say “hey, its a class of 6-he ought to be able to stay on track”

As you said, it’s NOT the outside distractions, its the movie inside his head. That inner dialogue is not going to suddenly draw him less strongly because there are 6 kids around him as opposed to 26.

I learned that first hand. Heck, it’s just me and him-surely I could keep his attention homeschooling! Small group size is not an answer in and within itself

He needs to have the same accomodations he would have in a class of 26. Stick him up front. Stop the lecture and ask him specific questions on an ongoing basis(my sons 4th gr teacher did this and he hated that she “kept interrupting my daydreaming”)Insist he take notes even if its not supposed to be a note taking class.

Notice what you notice when he is gone and cue them in. ‘a glazed expression’ would be my guess. Help the teachers learn to recognize it-they are too busy looking for fidgeting and getting up outof chair behaviors.

When I see ‘the glazed expression” I immediately stop what I’m doing, start asking questions to determine when he “left” and back up and reteach. This teacher could take a few minutes to have all the kids review aloud. “Billy, in your words, what did I just explain”. “Okay, now, Susie.” Even if ds wasnt paying attention originally, hes bound to snap to when he is next(and this kind of verbal review couldnt hurt ANY kid in a LD class)

Let me back up and respond to all of your thoughtful posts so our dialogue is meaningful…

My son has not been dx as ADD-int, although the possibility based on his behavior is certainly out there. We consulted with a pediatric psychiatrist specifically on this question, and he saw him for over 1 year.

His performance at school (which is a special LD school) ranges between satisfactory to very good. There are no areas that need improvement right now.

Des - I would not seek out a doctor that will prescribe meds on my say so, I sought a doctor that would help us understand if meds were appropriate for my child and his professional ,informed decision was that they were not appropriate at that time. If I’ve misunderstood your post I apologize, but it sounds like you suggesting I get him on meds no matter what and that wasn’t the point of my initial post.

Marycas - A major reason for deciding against meds was that even in a mainstream setting, and even in light of his dyslexia my son was learning. Now he is in a private special school where the teachers are all trained in how to work with LD kids. The school is not for ADD kids, but due to the cormordity of the 2 conditions, obviously they have alot of experience with children with ADD as well. So I think its fair to say that Yes, they are actively involved in keeping him focused. Its hard in a class of 6 to be anywhere but the front row (LOL). His attentional difficulties were only noted by the language arts teacher, not the other teachers he sees, although when I asked them about it they did acknowledge seeing it. In other words, it wasn’t on the front burner as an issue getting in the way of his learning at this time given the special environment he is in.

Beth - hmm. I hear you on the sensory motor. Food for thought. You say that “audioblox is strong on the visual end of things” .. do you mean it remediates the visual, or relies on strong visual (which he doesn’t have..)

SAR - I think you are on the same page as my original post! We have a school psychologist and I will ask her to observe him if his zoning out doesn’t ease. Is that what you mean by behavioral specialist?

Thansk all!

Yes, there are many roles for the school psychologist, if this one does beh. cons. as well as testing I’d go there; start with data collection in the class(es), and see what you’re really working with…it could range from interfering anxiety, to looking like inattention(my now 7th grader was a very slow processor and was always playing what the teacher said over in his mind to “hear” it again, so he looked like he wasn’t attending), to a very very bright kid(like my 5th grader who is bored and only needs half a brain as he says to do the work) who creatively goes off from the lesson.

Audiblox covers visual and auditory skills. There is a heavy emphasis at first on the visual end in the regular program. I have used the program, and it works if you stick to it. It is not a quick fix, but improving deficits is what I aim for rather than just providing accomodations. You could order a customized program and that might be very beneficial to you.

Hi Karen,
good to hear your son is happy in a new school….

Does his school utilize a “feedback” system?

one of the beauty of my son’s school is their “feedback” system (across each period) in which of the feedbacks is called “lala land” that means the student is not paying attention. I think this is extremely important part of the LD school remediation. Do you have something similar happening? I remember the boy who was on Martha Deckla’s interview who said that such feedback system was the most helpful element in the LD school he attended (he went to Lab School in Wash. DC).

In my son’s school we get weekly reports with all feedback on it and can clearly see how is he doing and with which of the tasks is he having biggest problem. They also have IEP goals related to this- under a common category “becoming an independent learner”. there are positive feedbacks as well (for example for being mindful et.c.).

Ewa

Ewa, Can you pls. explain more about this feedback system? I don’t think we have the same thing, but I’m still learning about the school so maybe there is something I can work with. I dont’ get weekly information other than completed work coming home.

They do have a behavior modification system used extensively internally , but my take on it is that its to help control the kids who are impulsive and disruptive. needless to say my kid has yet to have any negative marks. They also heap on the rewards for completing assignments and performing well academically. He loves that part. (they get to earn “homework free nights” and pizza parties.)

Since the school limits its enrollment to dyslexic kids with at least average IQ’s it doesn’t seem like they’ve institutionalized anything to address “la la land” but I could be wrong. Certainly if their concern about this issue escalates I will ask them to engage in a more frequent dialogue with me.

I also suspect that their testing is somewhat limited. They did do extensive testing/observation (8 hours worth!) as part of the admissiosn process. I will certainly inqure about what the school psych. can bring to the table. Gee, it would be nice to get something for free!

In response to the post that disagreed with my proposal to try meds and not tell the teachers, I would assume the meds would be tried at home to be sure there was no adverse reaction before just giving the child a pill and sending him to school. There are kids in schools every day who are on meds the teachers do not know about. That is confidential information and not everyone necessarily knows.

Janis

>[Des - I would not seek out a doctor that will prescribe meds on my say so, I sought a doctor that would help us understand if meds were appropriate for my child and his professional ,informed decision was that they were not appropriate at that time. If I’ve misunderstood your post I apologize, but it sounds like you suggesting I get him on meds no matter what and that wasn’t the point of my initial post.

No, no not at all. I think *I* misunderstood reading back on things. No, there is a lot of mixed feelings on meds. I think it has to be your decision. I would NOT get a doctor who forced this issue.

That’s why i gave some alternatives. I highly resented the anonymous post that suggested that someone had an agenda. This is a parent/teacher/ld person group. Some people are VERY happy with a program and may be very enthused. That’s how I read certain posts say on IM.

—des

Karen,

I will need to double check the details with my son tomorrow.

From what I know, a good portion of children in my son’s school are diagnosed with ADHD along with dyslexia (and also some % of other SLD) and some are on medication. The feedback is like behavioral modification with a variety of behaviors being monitored. There are positives (mostly for academic performance) in a form of “dress down” for Friday (90% homework average for middle and upper school and 95% of lower school), earned trip to “Big E” or “Six Flags”, “earned half day” fluency day (when they have no flat lines in their progress charts in fluencies).

The behavioral system goes however beyond academics and concentrates heavily on becoming an “independent learner” (as the school calls it). Here the issues are: behavior and active participation in classes. Behavior goes beyond a generic statement “disruptive”- they have specific “negative points” from which I know the best about “blurts” because this is my son’s major problem. Being in “lala land” which means being caught not paying attention is also a negative point. They do not earn “penalties” for these negative points but the Academy has standards of what the goal is- for example for blurts (I believe) the academy goal is not more than 7 per trimester (my son had 50 when he started). Each student has specific goals (depending on their problematic areas) on their IEP. Obviously earning “blurts” is not a problem for each student- it is for my very impulsive child. I do not know much about the “lalaland” because my son does not have this problem (although the psychologist who evaluated him said that on the CPT hmy son tested so badly that he acted as random and he claimed that he only saw a handful of children that were so poor on sustaining attention; apparently the change in environment and proper teaching approach did a wonder for our child…). There are also negative points for “blocking” (another of my son’s problem)- given when a child is switching to an “I cannot do it” mode when facing a difficulty/frustrating situation/problem et.c (including “acting out” when frustrated). They also issue “CIs” (Critical Incident report) for certain behaviors (some are “predefined”- like not following certain disciplinary rules – no physical contacts for example- others are more like “talking back” et.c. issues- and believe me the school is extremely strict). In middle school and upper school the students serve “detention” for each CI they earn. There is also entire world of “not doing HW” penalties, which I luckily did not learn much about…(the last phase is a $5/hour study hall- this applies to middle and upper school only).

The positive points are given for “being mindful” (usually for asking a mindful question or mindful comment et.c.), for “gating” asking a speaker (either teacher or a fellow student) to slow down and explain when the student is “losing it” and is not being able to follow what is being explained/discussed and needs to ask for smaller bits of information to process. There are also positives for “being precise” et.c. I think there are ~10 various types positives/negatives categories in which one can earn points. I believe there are also Academy standards for how many of positive points a student should earn per trimester in a given category of positive points.

Since my son is already in “middle school” in academy he gets weekly reports with his positives and negative points (all spell out per period, so I also can see in which classes he is having the greatest difficulties to control for example his blurts).

The “feedback” system chart is posted in each classroom, so during each period each student knows how many positive or negative points did he/she earned; the teacher states that thsi student earns whatever feedback point and records it (each classroom has a board with names of all students on it and the teacher is recording feedback points during a given period). All this is recorded into a data base for the entire school.

I think that summarizes what I am aware of. The greatest beauty (in my opinion) is that the standard is kept across the entire school day- each teacher is using the exact same system in every class attended.

A good illustration on how effective the feedback system is my son’s comment he made when he was taking standardized testing. My son told me that he had earned a lot of negatives in the class he attended right after the standardized testing because during testing the feedback system was not in place- hence when coming back from the “feedback-free” hour he had difficulties to adjust to “being an active/non-disruptive learner mode”. I am hoping that the school’s claim will come true and my son will eventually internalize the behavior the school promotes.

Ewa

Wow that is awesome. I think alot of the behaviors (good and bad) are monitored at my son’s school, and rewards and punishments are built into the day in similar ways - but its not documented or discussed in such a detailed way. I’m going to ask them if they are familiar with your system.

We thought the system we do have sounded very punitive at first, but my son loves it b/c the disruptive kids get punished and its very clear what is expected. My son’s behavior is very good and his highest grade on his progress report was a “very good” for behavior. But they don’t monitor or provide feedback on inattentive behavior. I suspect as someone in this thread said that the emphasis is more on the hyper end of the spectrum. They do however just work on the inattentive behavior as a matter of course.

[quote=”des”]>[. I highly resented the anonymous post that suggested that someone had an agenda. This is a parent/teacher/ld person group. Some people are VERY happy with a program and may be very enthused. That’s how I read certain posts say on IM.

—des[/quote]

Sadly, this group DOES include people who are not who they say they are. There are people who post here who are fronts for ADHD drug manufacturers. There are people who post here who work for anti-meds groups and are not really parents of LD or ADHD children. There are people who post here who are purveyors of alternative treatments seeking to drum up business. There are people who post here who try to prey on parents who are desperate to help their children. And there are people who post here who are just genuinely motivated to share and to help. It can be hard to tell which is which, so be wary of what you read here and ALWAYS double check the OBJECTIVE information out there.

That might be the case, anonymous. But there are many people here signing there names, and so I recognize them. I know that some parents here (say Patti) are enthusiastic on the help meds have had for her kid(s?), and some like Nancy of IM or other therapies. While I know of a David who doesn’t use meds, and advocates alternatives.

And while there may be reps from drug companies (I haven’t really noticed any lately) and some people from companies (there was a guy very openly from Math U See), there are also people that come in and try to scare parents re:meds. Many of these people are from scientologyand some other groups, and they are even more vehement. And prolly even less accurate.

Since you are a guest, you may not recognize some of the more frequent posters but I do (and many others do). It is a good idea to also check out who you are attacking as having an agenda. That’s a strong word.

Certainly I agree you should take the posts here as opinions and independently check stuff out. If that’s what you are trying to say I wholeheartedly agree.

—des

Karen,

Audioblox works on visual skills, among other things. I think it is a good compliment to vision therapy. We have never done it (I have seen it) but in retrospect it would have been a better choice than PACE for us. The main reason I say that is that it is designed for younger children than PACE and I think my son would have been able to have been more successful. PACE has a stronger AP component but then my son was never able to do the exercises!!

Beth

Karen once again we find ourselves in a similar set of circumstances. My son is finishing up with VT and I have seen great progress in several areas.

The one problem that exists is that at times he too seems to lose his ability to concentrate. He doesn’t seem adhd because most of the time he is right on. I do know that he does have problems with attention I am just not sure of the root cause and I am one who is always interesting in understanding the root cause before taking on a new intervention, whatever it is.

I do think anxiety is a big part of this. He never used to seem anxious to me. He is very happy go lucky and most people would say I was crazy to call him anxious. He just gets quiet and zones and only when I examine the set of circumstances that lead up to the zoning do I realize it is anxiety. This rarely happened with last years sunny, warm teacher but this years teacher is a little more “let’s get down to business.” This makes him a little nervous at times but it really isn’t terrible. He is doing ok in class.

I am thinking that he needs to learn relaxation techniques. His vision therapist also believes that anxiety is an issue for him because sometimes he will tense up during therapy and lose the ability to concentrate. The same vision therapist insists that he is one of the most focused kids he has ever dealt with and that he does not have adhd.

I will be going over some things with him to help him learn to relax like breathing techniques, head rolls or just scrunching his shoulders to get them to relax and release the tension.

I am considering chiropractic. His neck muscles get very tense and I want to find out if there is something that could be done to release the tension that builds up there. There is a chiropractor in my area that seems up on many different holistic therapies. I am usually able to get him to relax at home but at school there isn’t anyone to give him an eye massage or lift him under the ribcage.

I am also considering PACE or going back to audiblox after vision therapy but for now I think getting him to relax is an important goal.

Linda, thanks for jumping in. I think you are always about 6 months ahead of us so I appreciate your input.

Our psychiatrist suggested yoga or some other relaxation technicques. He had suggested classical music in the evenings to help ds turn off his thoughts at bed time and its really worked wonders.

I think if you have a child with issues who is not depressed, the anxiety doesn’t look like sadness or even nervousness. But they feel anxious and some of the zoning out is a response to this. My son was so much more with it this past summer when there was very little to stress him out (even with our move which is interesting to note) School, even a special school, I guess can still be stressful. Plus he’s been having trouble with a friend (see other thread on that topic!) and I think maybe that’s contributed to an uptick in his spaciness.

So maybe instead of more therapy, when VT is over in january I’ll sign him up for tae kwon do, or yoga or something like that. And I’m going to bone up on audioblox and see if I think I can do it with him at some point, maybe start in the spring and continue thru the summer.

I’d get Mel Levine’s book … Keeping A HEad In School I think is the one I’m thinking of (http://www.ldonline.org/kidzone/qa_levine.html) — it’s geared at kids his age and has lots of strategies & advice. (Yes, same Levine as One Mind at a TIme and Oprah fame, but thsi book’s been around for a while… nonetheless a keeper.)

http://www.ldonline.org/kidzone/qa_levine.html

Seeing if this shows up as a link if I try formatting it different ;)

www.ldonline.org/kidzone/qa_levine.html

Karen,

I’ve been reading books on vision therapy and G.N. Getman suggests in his book Successful In Everything But School that often times inattentiveness (often mistaken for add, etc.) is really caused by the lack of underlying motor skills that are the root of the vision problems. Given that your son seems to have this problem in language arts maybe something like this is the underlying problem.

As I’ve mentioned in my other appends my son struggles with school and is currently in vision therapy. One of his absolute worst subjects is language arts. It is mostly vision oriented. Getman suggests that children with vision problems have to work so hard just to read and write that they eventually “zone out” because their systems become so overloaded. They start out fine but the more difficult the task and/or the longer the amount of time the vision system has to work the more difficult it is for the child with vision problems to stay on task.

This seems to be how my son works. He also processes information very slowly so this is another issue to work through. I’ve talked to both him and the teacher about his language arts assignments. These are the ones he is least successful on. He starts out fine but often doesn’t finish. He complains that the teacher moves too quickly for him to keep up. Sometimes he just quits because it becomes to overwhelming. His teacher is quite demanding and at times is not very accomodating. (She’s thinks he’s just lazy. Although, she’s beginning to see this isn’t the case.)

I’m beginning to think that maybe Getman is at least partially right. His theory is that at some point the child didn’t develop all the motor skills necessary for vision to develop correctly and until those skills are developed and the vision corrected the child will continue to have problems focusing in school.

Something to think about.

Personally I’m not for medicating. Please don’t think I’m saying this means don’t. I realize this is a very personal decison. I’m an easily distracted adult. I have to really concentrate to remain “on task”. This is part of who I am and I’ve had to learn to deal with it and continue to deal with it daily. It doesn’t mean I’m not a successful adult it just means I deal with life differently than people who aren’t easily distracted. My husband for example. I worked extremely hard in school, graduated from college with a computer science degree and worked for one of the largest computer companies in the world. While working there I discovered that I was most successful working in jobs which didn’t require me to focus on one thing for extremely long periods of time.

Good Luck

Maja, Just as aside, I worked for IBM for 12 years, and saw many different types of people and skills. My son will be fine some day when he able to specialize in his areas of strength and interest.

He does have motor/vision issues and we are doing VT. But his biggest problem is not in sustaining attention, but initiating his work. He zones out between tasks - that’s when he goes somewhere in his mind. This behavior has been consistent since he was very little. We had him take the stanford binet for admission to our local gifted kindergarten and the tester noted that he had trouble initiating a few tasks,but when told how to begin stayed on task and finished up just fine! Its the same now.

Getting him to do something is sometimes like steering a large ship. Its take a while to get his attention , get him going in the right direction. Then you see him focus in and zoom, he’s off and his performance is fine.

Frustrating and fascinating.

Initiating work is my son’s problem too. The teacher complains that he avoids new things by leaving the room to go to the bathroom when they are starting something new. I think he gets stressed by new things so it is all related. I have noticed that when he does homework that is familiar he races right through it easily but when it is something new he does not have the skills to figure it out without some explanation. He is much better than when we started this journey.

I used to have to read and explain every math question and now it is just an occasional problem with new material. He picks things up quickly though. He doesn’t need a long drawn out explanation. There are times when he can figure things out so as usual he is inconsistant. He recently came home and told me he was the only one who understood the latest chapter in math immediately after it was explained and he is in a class with several gifted kids (they cluster the gifted kids and he was placed in one of those classes although he is not considered gifted.) Math used to be impossible for him.

He can sustain his attention too. That is odd they are so much alike.

One thing, he is so tense in his shoulders. If I try to massage his shoulders or neck he winces in pain. This is so strange to me. I love to have my shoulder massaged. Is this a problem for you son?

I do agree with the concept that the visual motor deficits add to stress because as these have been remediated he can tolerate more stress than ever before. I don’t think he would have been able to tolerate his current teacher and his extremely busy schedule in second grade.

Karen,

yes, we also initially thought the system in the school is very punitive. Now I can appreciate that it really is geared towards promoting certain model of student- an active learner. There are natural consequences for not paying attention- no product. Similarly, “blocking” or avoiding difficult task results in no end product/progression in the project as well. I believe the school tries to modify the initial behavior because most of the kids do not really make the connection between the final crisis with the initial problem; not mentioning that by the time the final crisis happen my son for example is so much into his “locked up state” there is no room for modification in his behavior.

Karen, he did not get such a detail report last year in lower school- they start with those for a bit older children- my son is 6th grader this year. He was getting all feedback, so they are getting used to it but no weekly reports.

If your son has problem with initiating work maybe the school could just set up the reward system for that task alone?

Ewa