I have an 8th grade student who has been through several different diagnosis with ADHD being one of them.
Like most parents we did what we could trying meds that didn’t work and some other therapies also. What we
have noticed works great for him is music, not only listening but playing. Since joining band and playing an
istrument his attention span has increased, his vocabulary, his self confidence, his posture, ect. He has been
playing for 2 years now and their is enough of a difference to be noticable. He also got LD instruction during
this time so it could be a combination. The reason I think music has so much to do with it is that both he an my
austic son are so much more focused when there is classical music playing when they are doing their
homework. If they are very “wond” this helps them to relax and they also use it to help themselves sleep. As
silly as it may seem I think I have noticed a big difference in their abilities also especially math. The biggest
difference for my oldest son was when he had to learn to use the metranome to keep time-after this things
seemed to “click” more for him. I just wanted to share this because maybe others can see the same benefit.
Re: Interesting side efects
There is quite a lot of research out there about the effects music on the brain. In fact, I wrote a reasearch paper on the subject. Go to Google.com search engine and type in music and brain. You will be able to access some interesting research.
Re: Interesting side efects
This affect is probably related to the kind of learner your son is. He must be an auditory learner. I was told that my daughter is probably an auditory learner because she studies with the stereo and TV on. Her teacher told me it would help her study if she reads her history book out loud. I am looking for a topic for a research paper topic as well. Maybe this would be fun to research.
Re: Interesting side efects
Probably not ADD though. I can’t listen and read, listen and add numbers, read and talk, or any of that combined interaction. Music is a great distraction, and keeping thought straight is at least for me difficult.
Just my experiance.
Thank you.
Re: Interesting side efects
Thanks for the tips. I am really glad that I found this site. Now I have other people who are going through the same things that I am, and we can talk to each other and get helpful information to help each other out.
Thanks for the insight. I’ll try this. At this point - I’ll try anything to help my son!