self-regulating ADHD symptoms

You can get the book at Ppofessional Development Programs online at:

http://www/pdppro.com

It is excellent and fairly easy to use.

If a child has classic ADHD - a known lifelong neurological challenge, self-regulating inattention/an attention deficit is like asking a child with epilepsy or Tourette’s to self-regulate epilepsy or to self-regulate Tourette’s. It’s like asking someone with polio to self-regulate polio.

It can increase a child’s awareness a little about what they face but the facts are that the right medicine for ADHD or epilepsy (etc.) is what can temporarily reduce symptoms in meaningful ways for some persons. Unfortunately the ADHD meds do not work for everyone. That’s just the real world.

Too many kids are misdiagnosed as ADHD and those have either reading disorders, behavior disorders or lack of structure at home or in school or both. I have even seen kids who were diagnosed ED, LD or ADD who actually were conduct disorder. Conduct disorder comes with one of the symptoms ODD, oppositional defiant disorder. Now, when you read about ADD, they talk about them having ODD in the make-up. The reason that Conduct Disorder isn’t given as a diagnosis is because it is generally a condition that predicts a child that will break the law and put in outside placements. No parent wants that. We had a boy who tried to set off a bomb in the school and he was labeled as ADD because his parents wouldn’t permit the diagnosis as conduct disordered, because of the stigma. He went to a military school and was expelled from there. I have yet to see a research that proves that ADD is neurological. If it was proof positive that it is neurological, than the tests wouldn’t continue to be subjective in nature. At one time, they felt that dyslexia couldn’t be remediated and now it can be. We can teach a dyslexic how to read and we know where the problem is in the brain, the temporal/ parietal area and when remediated, the right side of the brain picks up the sound/symbol relationship, phonemic awareness. Could you please tell me of the research that finally is able to prove that ADD exists. I don’t mean research that says, it seems to be…., or it appears to be…….

Hello there,

Thanks for the information, Cheryl! I’ve passed it on and ordered a copy of the publication for myself.

In response to the other posts, I agree that ADHD is sometimes misdiagnosed. I’ve seen children in my practice who clearly have some combination of sensory integration difficulties, anxiety, attentional weaknesses, language delays and all the attendant behavioral problems. My approach is to prioritize the symptoms based on which ones are having the most impact on the quality of life for the child and his parents, and to make recommendations accordingly. I think self-awareness and strategy-based tools are invaluable in treating any condition we see in our children. Even if we think of ADHD as a brain-based biochemical problem, children who are aware of their state of arousal, and who can guage the impact of their behavior on others are miles ahead on the journey to finding solutions. I once worked with a 5 year old who periodically asked me for a break so he could ‘waste his extra energy’. This child did end up on medication and is doing extremely well. However, his ability to guage his needs and ask for the appropriate accomodations was a tremendous strength and that quality will always stand him in good stead.

That’s my tuppence worth! Thank you for all your input on my initial query.

Cheers!

Kalyani

Boy, Shay, are you going to get in trouble, asking for real factual evidence. I’m already in trouble over on one or two of the other boards for daring to disagree with someone’s pet opinion and favourite pop-psych books.

I saw an interesting book written by a doctor who doesn’t believe in ADHD as a distinct disease, but rather sees it as a behaviour pattern or patterns arising out of a number of sources, *one* of which is closed head wounds, ie concussions of various degrees from mild to severe — and we do know how much active young people do bump their heads. I forget the other sources he mentions.
As a high-activity person from a high-activity family who do not do at all well with drugs of any sort, I am definitely interested in alternative ideas and treatments. I am also dedicated to reality and factual evidence.
This book may of course go much too far in the opposite direction — and we have too much polarization already and ahve to watch out — but if you’re interested you might look for it; I believe the title was “The Myth of ADHD’ or something like that. This was a recent book, in hardcover in the bookstore (I read it off the shelf — hyperactive speed is useful sometimes) last winter.

Years ago in the 70’s or early 80’s, I also picked up one called “The Myth of the Hyperactive Child” which again went too far in the opposite direction but made many good points, including the fact that there wouldn’t be much exploration and discovery without those high-activity people.

I picked up one at Barnes &Noble this week which said there’s no such thing as LD. I guess if you can get enough people to buy it….

Again, I did clearly state a reasoned middle course suggesting skepticism about BOTH extremes.

Again, I mentioned that I had done a quick skim and thought the author may go too far, but it is a possible interesting contrary viewpoint for someone looking for *all* the facts.

I do believe LD’s and other problems exist. I also believe that people with these symptoms are normal human beings like all of us, not a distinct and peculiar species. Neither extreme helps understand or help.

If causes and cures for ADHD symptoms can be found by treating neurological damage, even in a few cases, I would hope that the sufferers and their families would be overjoyed.

Victoria, I understand what you stated, I was just giving another example of the “extremes” that are out there.

Now, you have really hit the nail on the head, are there really learning disabiliies? Let’s first think about that term, disability. Webster defines a disability as to weaken or distroy the nomal physical or mental abilities of; to imcapacitate. I think that those are really strong words. Let’s take reading, if by using a reading program, that works. the 16 year old learning disabled student is able to read, was he ever learning disabled, or did the era of whole language ‘disable’ this child in the form of dysteachia? After structurally teaching my class how to actually write, my self-contained learning ‘disabled’ students came very close to passing the state test in reading and writing, were they ever ‘disabled’ or again the result of dysteachia? This situation is the main reason behind Bush’s education initiative and review and changes being recommended for IDEA. They are forcing the schools to ‘teach’ basic skills with programs that work so that instead of 20% of the kids in sped, a 5% of kids who really are in need of sped services will be able to get the services they need, even the cadilac of services. In the schools where PG is being used as the reading program for k-3, (can only speak of PG, no other program. Not to say that others are successful), there are very few children being referred to sped. I believe that my daugter would not have been ‘dyslexic’ if she would have been taught with PG from k-3. I have to finish this, but could write on it forever, I believe that learning disabilities do exist but not to the degree that it is today. I had to make objectives and run an IEP meeting for three students that had no deficiencies, in fact, their strengths were their labels! I voted for dismissal but was outvoted by the department chair and a worried parent about their child passing the state tests. You see, students who are in sped can get a modified diploma but reg ed kids don’t have that option. If I can remediate kids in high school in what they were deficient in in order to get the heavy label, were they ever LD? Got to go to work, I’m tutoring 7 kids today and won’t get back home until 9:00, a whole lot of dysteachia out there. Trying to save some from the label, and succeeding!

victoria wrote:
>
> Again, I did clearly state a reasoned middle course
> suggesting skepticism about BOTH extremes.
>
> Again, I mentioned that I had done a quick skim and thought
> the author may go too far, but it is a possible interesting
> contrary viewpoint for someone looking for *all* the facts.
>
> I do believe LD’s and other problems exist. I also believe
> that people with these symptoms are normal human beings like
> all of us, not a distinct and peculiar species. Neither
> extreme helps understand or help.
>

Thank you for that Victoria. I believe that we all have some difficulty with real world things. The ones whose difficulty are in the realm of school related tasks are labled LD. Yet, I have doubts that they are truely as distinct and different as many seem to think. Once people get out into the real world a whole host of skills and strengths are required that may not have been emphasized at school, especially in the lower grades. So people who never had school LD may find themselves with life LD if they are thrust into a situation where they lack the strengths to succeed.

I often think about the type of person who does well at school. They are usually obediant, rule followers who take instruction well. How opposite is this to the profile of the risk taking, think out of the box entreprenuer?

I also have a theory about equity traders, adrenaline as a natural stimulant and ADHD, but I won’t even go there. I just don’t have any science to back it up.

Shay,

The social worker at my son’s school told me that they have extremely high levels of LD in our district. She equated it to the very wonderful sevices our school provides LD children and said people come here just for the services.

They use whole language at this district. I think I just figured out where all those LD children are truely coming from.

Linda F

My two cents:

ADHD does exist - it’s been around for centuries. It had a different names then. Now, we have more information about it, although still not enough, but we are getting there.

As for “proof” you can use the same argument, bi-polar, depression, autism spectrum disorders don’t exist either b/c there is no neurological positive test for it - but the symptoms are devastating enough for a diagnosis and (mostly successful) treatment.

ADHD is not a “disease”, but a disorder. Why the correction? I’d rather have a disorder than a disease anyday. Less time should be spent stigmatizing ADHD and more offering teacher support - which BTW, many of the teaching skills/techniques which are critical to an ADHD’ers school success (e.g., study skills, organization, positive reinforcement, etc.) also benefit non-ADHD’ers too - go figure.

Some ADHD’ers can develop coping or compensatory strategies as they grow up. For some, developing these strategies requires too much of them. Others can’t develop any at all. I believe I’ve read aong the way that there is a high propensity of untreated ADHD’ers in prison, but there are also a lot of CEO’s who are ADHD (I know one personally and I quote “Ritalin got me through college” as per a brilliant and absolutely charming and quirky man).

Onto LD’s. My child is ADHD with “learning differences” b/c of the guidelines for special ed labels required by my state. Had we not provided her with the correct early intervention, she would have been “LD” given another year or two to fail enough to make that LD classification gap - she was off to an excellent start at failing and frustration. Then, the school help would have been “too litlle/too late”. How fortunate for her. (My ADHD came in real handy here.) How tragic for many other kids.

The label isn’t tragic, the inability to succeed in school, usually accompanied by plummeting self esteem is. Labels are irrelevant - at best they are only tools.

d

PS - Hi Leah!!! My life has gone crazy this summer, so I haven’t e-mailed you! I hope things are well.

The strange thing about this is that if a person is effectively remediated at a young age most will say, “Well they were probably never really LD”

If I had not started by remediating my sons fine motor issues at the age of 4 and addressed other deficit areas as they became apparent he would be unequivacly NLD. He doesn’t fit NLD and I will take a guess that as we further remediate he will not be LD. He may always have some weaknesses but we all have some weaknesses.

He was given the dyslexia label by some, but is no longer dyslexic because he is now an above grade level reader.

I am not against labels persay it is just that so many teachers and coaches that I have dealt with seem to use these labels as an excuse not to teach. It becomes a situation where they put that nonlearner at the back of the line. It is the reality I face where I live and is not meant as a slam against teachers in general. I have also come across some amazing, wonderful teachers. Many here on these boards.

So my son’s dysgraphia is disappearing as he learns to write but maybe he never really was dysgraphic. I guess we will never really know.

I have to agree that for people for whom remediation was not either tried or successful at a young age the LD must be taken into consideration and accomodation must be made.

I really believe that school is not life and life is not school. People who get accomodations in school may become extemely successful in life. They may just need a really good secretary. Maybe it will even be that girl next to you who got the straight As in class.

Hi AA,

I am not saying that LD and ADHD doesn’t exist but not in the percentages that we see in the school. I am a mother of a daughter who was labeled LD, dyslexic all of her life and it almost destroyed her. What I am saying is that if a student in high school can be remediated in both reading and writing, due to both not being taught in a total whole language school, they couldn’t have been disabled. I don’t doubt that you have learning disabilities and I have definite LD kids in my classes but not the percentages that we are seeing in the classroom. If my daughter would have been taught to read with a phonics program like PG from k-3, she wouldn’t have been LD. The belief that there are too many kids that are labeled LD due to not being taught with reading methods and math methods that work is the basis of the reading initiative in congress as well as the changes in IDEA.

I have just received the scores of my 11th graders’ English SOLs and they range from 385-420, 400 being passing. These are kids that in September could barely write a good sentence let alone a paragraph. They all were justified for sped services in grade school with a writing and reading disability. I first taught them how to read and then how to write. These scores are excellent compared to their 8th grade scores with just one year of remediation. My county doesn’t believe in remediating older kids, just accommodations. I asked if I could use my remediation programs and they said go right ahead. I think that these scores prove a lot, many kids are LD due to dysteachia and not because they are actually LD. If we start teaching our kids in the elementary schools with reading programs that work, there would be less LD and those that are truly LD would receive better teaching and the accommodations would work because there would be less of them. This is not just my belief, but many researchers as well.

No, I am not saying that kids with accommodations are at an advantage, because the accommodations are being made and have been since the elementary school and the kids still can’t pass the tests.What I am saying is that there are many reg ed kids that if tested, would be sped kids and I think that a modified diploma should be offered to reg ed kids as well. We are having an increase in referrals for sped services due to the modified diploma. I have heard that some parents have told their kids to do poorly on the testing just so they will be able to receive a modified diploma and not a certificate of attendance. This year’s 11th grade class is the class that the SOLs are going to determine graduation, or certificate of attendance. I understand that they project 1500 students in Fairfax county will not be receiving a diploma. I think that there will be rioting in the streets. For one thing, the tests are very unfair and awful tests. I feel that the kids in general are being persecuted due to not being taught basic skills due to WL. The kids have to edit sentences and they have never been taught grammar. We have some kids, both sped and reg ed who are taking algebra 1 part 1 for the third time and they are in 11th grade. There is no such thing as consumer math or general math; they all, reg and sped, have to take algebra 1 pt 1, pt 2 and geometry in order to graduate and also pass the corresponding SOLs. I was awful in math when I was in high school and certainly would never have passed the tests. Also, all students have to pass earth science, biology and chemistry or physics and their corresponding SOLs in order to graduate. We have many sped students that won’t graduate because they can’t pass the courses let alone the SOLs. Our dropout rate is getting higher because the 10th and 11th graders couldn’t pass the tests in their courses and they already know that they aren’t going to graduate unless they do. It is very upsetting.

I love seeing posts like this because they show how important it is to provide EARLY remediation. So many teachers, with the best of intentions, tell parents to wait and see, that the range of “normal” is pretty broad for young kids, etc. So many parents really want to hear and believe that message because, after all, who wants their kid to have an LD? I know I didn’t. The thing is, if you act soon enough, kids can forge new pathways in their brains that help to minimize the effects of the LD. We started early with my son (age 5) and it has made all the difference. He too has been described as dyslexic, but he now reads above grade level. If a young child is having trouble in preschool or kindergarten and can’t do what his peers are able to do, that is a warning sign that should be heeded. Does the child “really” have an LD or is it just a relative weakness? As far as I’m concerned, who cares? If you can provide early help, you may never need to find out the answer to that question. I wish more schools would recognize this and provide the necessary services. As it is right now, most parents of young children who are having difficulties have to find these services themselves and foot the bill as well.

Andrea

I disagree. I think if dyslexia and LD are remediated enough to the point that it no longer makes a significant mark or “handicap” on your life, then I do believe it does “disappear.”

But, that threshold is extremely different for every individual.

nt

For what it’s worth - I agree with your 2 cents.

My daughter, although much improved with remediation, is still LD. While it is not as obvious to those who don’t know her as it once was, I still see the struggle every day and the hard work she must undertake everytime she goes to a classroom. In Sunday School last year I mentioned that she had trouble reading and they were surprised! They hadn’t noticed - that’s what we want. If she can be remediated to the point that it’s not SO obvious hurrah; however, I agree it just doesn’t go away.

How is dyslexia remediated? My child is currently a fifth grader but reading level is between 1st and 2nd grade. Handwriting is unreadable; great thoughts are going on in this child’s head but are not written down on paper. Short term memory is also involved; can this also be remediated. After many years of speech, OT, smaller classrooms, where should I continue?