ADD vs CAPD

From what I remember about your daughter when you first started posting I suspected ADD. The reason she is having difficulty in recalling information and following directions is because she is being inattentive, Then the way she compensates when she realizes she has zoned is to copy others….The Dr. is suspecting the same and if your insurance will kick in for treatment then go for it..you have nothing to lose. If she doesn’t improve then go for the CAPD testing on your dime. I sure wish I had found out about my daughter ADD before I wasted 5 years thinking it was just CAPD…

I learned you really can’t remediate a child if you can’t get them to focus There is a difference but more often than not the root of the CAPD I have found is ADD.

Well, do the ADD testing that is covered first because it’s there, and then sve up for the CAPD as soon as possible. It isn’t either-or.

I don’t think it is either or. My child was first diagnosed with CAPD. We saw noticeable differences in attention once we addressed the CAPD. However, several years later it became obvious that there were still attention issues. He was then diagnosed ADD-inattentive.

Beth

It can be co-morbid and they do go hand in hand but I can also tell you from experience that when my attention is maxed out, my auditory processing is out the window. I can be looking at someone and I hear everything they say but sometimes I have to ask them to repeat it not just once but several times…because I am having such a hard time focusing and getting the gestalt.

Sometimes I get pulled into IEP meetings and I am asked to take the notes because I am very detail oriented but when I know I am tired and not focusing as well I pass on the note taking.

What I am not getting with this whole thing, is that she doesn’t have a focusing problem. She stays on task very well, even if she is struggling at it. Her teacher last year was concerned about her hearing as when she was tutoring Rachel. She would find that Rachel would mispronounce something, and when the teacher got her to look at her, Rachel was then able to pronounce the word. I know that the doctor seems to think that it may be ADD or CAPD, however all she has is the test from the current school. No where in the test does it say she was inattentive, but rather a good rapport was established easily. I have looked back at a quite a few of her report cards and again nothing about inattentiveness, lack of focus, or the like. She did have some problems following directions, but was found that she copied others. She always did what she was asked to do. I realise ADD could be a possible diagnosis, but I truly don’t believe that is the problem she is facing. I still think that she isn’t processing the information presented and thus can’t do the work. I haven’t seen that in my research on ADD, but I haven’t read everything out there on ADD either. She just doesn’t seem like any of the children with ADD or ADHD I have worked with in the past.

Don’t get me wrong Patti, I know you have thought ADD from the start. And I am not an expert on LD but I do know that it can go the other way too. If you can’t process the information you will also zone out. I want a definite diagnosis. We are doing the ADD stuff right now, but with the over diagnosis of the disorder and the fact that the doctor thought that Craig and I could possibly have ADD (which I definitely do not, but there is a slight possibility Craig does however he hasn’t done the test the dr has on her website) just made me feel that it is an easy diagnosis. I do like our doctor and and she is open, honest, and gladly answers our questions. It just seems that ADD is the disorder of preference for her. I do appreciate that she is doing actual “testing” to substanciate this hypothesis.

I do understand that there is a form of a link between ADD and CAPD, just know all that much about CAPD except is is auditory and Rachel is a high visual learner with little auditory learning tendancies.

It is difficult to sort a lot of this out. I don’t know whether it will help or not, since children are different, but I thought I’d share some of things that I have observed in my son and what I think they are due to.

CAPD–he had difficulty in noisy environments, overwhelmed easily by noise and couldn’t focus, difficulty discriminating sounds, following directions, poor receptive language skills, couldn’t understand conversation unless focused on—poor eavesdropper (that had its advantages), auditory memory was poor,

other auditory issues that I am not sure would be CAPD

auditory-motor–being able to repeat what he hears, I have trouble with this too and it is most obvious in trying to repeat an unusual name—I hear it just fine but can’t reproduce it,

word retrieval—finding the right word in speaking and more than typical difficulty remembering words in reading,

ADD—this impacts his following directions too because he is not tuned in always but we saw marked improvement in direction following when we addressed some of his auditory issues, doesn’t seem to tune in when subject is boring at school—we see this in learning grammar particularly—you wouldn’t know kid has had it taught to him (fortunately he is interested in most things!!) Mind has trouble staying focused on what we’re doing–he is off on his own tangent talking about hurricanes or palm trees, or vacation when I am trying to get him to practice his spelling!!! He is disorganized which is characteristic of kids with ADD. He is not hyper at all.

We don’t have him medicated because, at least for now, addressing his CAPD and other LDs have made the ADD manageable. I have to reteach English and spanish (which he also hates) at home but that is OK for now.
He does learn and retain everything else pretty well now.

Beth

A few thoughts after skimming the posts. ADD is definitely not always visible to observers! A child may be making a great effort to attend and concentrate yet inside the brain, the child is not retaining information in short term memory. They may have to read and reread to get what they are reading. So not having comments about inattention does not rule out ADD-inattentive type. It is the ADHD that teachers are quick to report!

You need to work out the ADD issue before doing APD testing. If she does have ADD, that will contaminate the APD testing.

I am not sure what you meant by disagreeing with the doctor about dyslexia being a learning disability. Dyslexia is a learning disability in reading. The majority of cases have a phonological processing issue at the root, but visual issues, memory, and attention can result in reading problems as well. Some children have more than one of these problems.

Janis

P.S. My son is an auditory learner, despite the CAPD. He likes me to read him his study guides, for example. I think he was hard wired that way and then undiagnosed ear infections impacted his auditory processing. I don’t know though if you can conclude anything one way or another about CAPD by learning style.

My son used to watch other kids too. It is a compensation strategy.

Beth

I am really good friends with two of the top audiologists in my area who specialize in CAPD (which by the ways is now called APD not CAPD). They have both tested my daughter. When my daughter was originally tested for APD she was very impulsive in her responses. The auditory vigilance test is one that really shows how their attention works…it is the infinite test of 20 minute boredom. You hear word after word and you have to respond to dog, and it is hard.

Her inattention/hyperactivity made it really difficult to get an accurate reading on her auditory processing deficits which were many but interferring with the auditory processing was her ADD. After she was on meds she was retested by the other audiologist and did much better. And yes, my daughter is an auditory learner, she uses hearing aids daily, used to use an ALD, she loves music, we also use close captioning on the TV which helped a lot with her reading and comprehension.

Hmmm…the Dr. suspects your husband and you have ADD? Been there…I swore up and down I wasn’t ADD until my daughter got diagnosed…and shortly after that I was diagnosed in college with ADD testing.

The longer you hem and haw about what to do for Rachel is that she loses out on more time for remedation. Been there too…and paying the piper daily to make up for the 4 years I had my head in the sand…

Ironically many people I know with hearing impairments are also ADHD or ADD-Inattentive. It is just what we do to compensate for what we can’t hear or process, we either constantly ask for clarification, for visual cues, or we TUNE out. The tuning out is the hardest thing to spot because we look normal on the outside but we are having a party in our head.

I loved Finding Neverland…JM Barrie and I have a lot in common, oh the places you can go in your imagination… :-D

Beth I think I need to clarify. The doctor told me that the words dyslexia and LD are thewere basically the same thing. I have heard that before from my surfing the LD websites. She basically said this to me when I asked her about the possiblility of Rachel having Dyslexia. It wasn’t that dyslexia was a type of LD but LD and dyslexia are one in the same. I guess it all comes down to what the medical determines the definition to be.

Patti, I definitely not avoiding the testing, or not open to the diagnosis. I just don’t think that she is ADD purely based on what I know of and see in her. I used to worry that she might have been when she was younger but as I have said before did a fair amount of research on it about 5 or 6 years ago and felt that she wasn’t. However as I said I am having the testing done, but I do have a gut feeling that CAPD (which is what our Dr called it last week, it could be a Canadian medical definition thing) could be an issue.

I do think that my husband might be ADD, however I know that I am not. I do admit that some of my characteristics could be viewed as ADD (being creative and having high energy) and I did have things happen in my elementary years that I mentioned to the doctor (such as daydreaming in grade 1 and doing all my homework after school in 30 minutes) but my mom told me last week that was only until my sister was born. Mom had a full term still when I was 5 and I must have been really worried about it happening again. After Kendra was born and I knew she was living, I snapped right out of that habit of daydreaming in class. In my childhood memory the timeframe of daydreaming wasn’t only one month. I also took the adult ADD test the dr told me about and it came out that I’m not ADD.

The word game:

Technically, dyslexia just means problems with the written word.
dys — prefix meaning problem or difficulty with functioning
lex — root meaning the written word

Historically, dyslexia is a diagnosis of elimination: the child is *not* low IQ, does not have a visual deficit (at least on the level of glasses checkup), does not have a hearing deficit (again on the level of the simple ‘can you hear the tone’ test), is not ill, does not have serious family or emotional problems, and has not missed a large amount of school; but despite good teaching and other needs in place,
the child still has difficulty learning to read. That is it, a fairly straightforward definition

Learning Disability — Reading means *exactly* the same thing.

Now we get out of the world of scientific and educational definitions and into the murky world of politics and even murkier world of profit-making companies selling unproven therapies.
For many years people looking for help worked hard to get dyslexia categorized as a medical condition, so that they could get US insurance companies to pay for the therapy. In the areas where they won, the result has backfired: Teachers cannot legally diagnose a medical condition so the people who actually know about reading and teaching reading are not legally allowed to use the word dyslexia! Also school boards are legally forced to provide certain facilities for handicapped students, and while well-meant, some of the facilities demanded would break the bank of any school (work out the costs of two full-time aides per class for yourself) so school boards will not use the word dyslexia in order to avoid being sued for millions and having nothing left to teach with.
Then there are certain groups who have (totally unproven) theories that dyslexia means you are a different and probably superior species of human with a completely different brain and all sorts of special talents. It’s easy to see why someone who has been feeling bad about their lack of success in school would like this to be true. People who prefer facts keep having to pour cold water on these theories, alas. Quite a few dyslexics are gifted in some academic areas, some talented or creative in other ways, and others are not especially gifted, just like any other group of humans. The brains of dyslexics and of other humans are almost impossible to tell apart; only in recent years with a lot of detailed research have any differences shown up at all. Some of the people who like to feel that dyslexia makes them somehow better insist absolutely on the use of the word dyslexia, nothing else will do, to the point sometimes of making a fetish of it. Other people then get offended at the pressure tactics and refuse to use the word. This is an unnecessary fight that wastes time and energy and resources which could far better be spent on helping children learn.

WOW! All this over a label.

[quote:6ae7e4f00c=”trikki”]WOW! All this over a label.[/quote]

So true, but we do get exercised over those labels. When my son was 6 he was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia. The doctor also mentioned that he suspected ADHD but couldn’t make a definitive diagnosis at that time. It seems funny to me now, but my husband and I were perfectly fine with the LD label but were really quite offended that anyone would think our son had ADHD. We were sure he didn’t because he wasn’t hyperactive and could pay attention to things when he was interested in them. As it turned out, my son’s biggest issue by far was his inattentive ADHD and nothing we did for him really helped until it was diagnosed and treated. Treating it allowed him to benefit from all we were doing for his LD. Before treatment, he was in special ed. After treatment, he is in a private school for gifted children and is a class leader.

One thing we did that helped my son’s attention a lot and as well as auditory processing is Interactive Metronome. We were on the verge of a medication trial when we did IM. Afterwards, he was able to complete other auditory therapy where previously he had hit a wall.

http://www.interactivemetronome.com/im/index.asp

Beth