to med or not to med

You say your daughter has concerns and needs related to written tasks, processing speed, cognitive fluency (math computation). Auditory attention and working memory-auditory. Just these things are going to make doing written homework and other schoolwork hard. Acting distracted may be the only way she can cope. Unless you’ve received a specific diagnosis that meds will help, you may find no difference. My son had problems staying on task, and his homework took more than twice as long as the teacher expected in 5th grade (when he was diagnosed LD). He also tested with a high IQ, but his performance was not up to his tested IQ. They called it a learning disability in written expression, and he has slow processing speed. He always seemed distracted, but that was because it was frustrating to him to not be able to do what everyone expected of him based on his verbal abilities. It turned out he was also dyslexic, but had been able to figure out how to get around that himself.

I have no idea whether meds will help, but you will also need to work on addressing your daughter’s learning issues. Working with a tutor or resource teacher may help her learn to cope with written tasks and math computation. You also need to provide lots of support to convince your daughter than she can indeed do the work that is expected of her. Sometimes it helps if you as a parent can take the cheerleader role, and hire someone else to serve as coach. Maintaining a positive relationship with your child is really important. I know that homework fights can make home life uncomfortable at times.

In our case, we hired a tutor to work twice weekly with my son (summers too), and she addressed his specific disabilities and taught him how to work with them. I’d encourage you to look into additional ways to help your daughter in conjunction with trying medications. They help with some issues, but won’t necesarily cure all learning disabilities.

Good luck,

Kay

[quote=”DARCY”] Concerns and needs according to the tests were written tasks,processing speed, cognitive fluency (math computation). Auditory attention and working memory-auditory. She tested with a high IQ and I know she can do the work and should be able to coplete it in a timely manner. [/quote]

Darcy,

A slow processing child often needs additional time, so there is that to consider. I’m not sure meds will help much with that — they never did with my child, although they were helpful in other contexts. When you say that you know that she can do the work, it makes me wonder if it is too easy for her and therefore is too boring for her to stay on task. The essence of ADHD is the inability to inhibit impulses. We all hate working on things that are boring, but most of us can make ourselves do it. Those with ADHD have a more difficult time doing so, because they have trouble inhibiting the impulse to stop doing something hard or boring. Your daughter has a high IQ and she may find her work unchallenging and therefore highly boring. That makes it harder for her to keep doing it. Just a thought …

Andrea

We also had the same situation. Even after all the remediation, the ADD meds made a tremendous difference. Depends on the kid. Mine’s ADD In only.

Meds helped my son tremendously too. He was much more able to stay on task and to keep working on things that he found difficult or uninteresting. It also helped with frustration tolerance. He now is very successful student who is viewed by his teachers as hard-working. Pre-meds, he was not successful, even with a good placement and the right kinds of remediation. The meds helped the remediation be effective. Psychoeducational testing after meds showed tremendous gains in his areas of strenght and some improvement in weak areas. Pocessing speed remained extremely slow, however, with no improvement at all.

Andrea

My son was tested at The Gifted Development Center in Denver just before his 5th birthday. He is gifted and Linda Silverman, although she never met my son, said he had “significant” ADHD. I never completely agreed with the diagnosis but he was certainly hyperactive. His activity level was often quite frenzied.

When he was 7, I put him in a study of ADHD kids at the University of North Texas and they said he had “no clinical ADHD” but some “inattention”. By researching myself, I discovered that he has Sensory Integration Dysfunction and that he has eye-tracking problems. He started complaining when he would read and finally refused to read although he can read at an advanced level. He is now 8yo.

I took him to a developmental optometrist and we started vision therapy. Within 3 weeks he started reading again and 2 weeks later had read the 1st three Readwall books. He is no longer hyperactive AT ALL!

I can’t explain it. The only therapy he is currently having is vision therapy.

My point is this: If I had returned home from Colorado and medicated my son as suggested, I might never have discovered the underlying problems causing the hyperactivity and inattention.

Sharon

Medication was a great help to one of my own two ADD children but didn’t help the other at all. It’s really impossible to know if medication will have a positive impact without trying it.

Your daughter is fortunate to have a parent who helps her with homework. Homework I found was the hardest part of school for my own children and for my students. It takes more than your dear daughter’s wonderfully high IQ to sit down each night - after a full day at school sitting down doing schoolwork - and tackle more schoolwork. I found that I had to do just what your’e doing with my own son - sit as his elbow and be a human egg timer. He needed to be ‘grounded’ and the only thing that worked in his younger years was another person at his elbow.

Good luck with this. You’re not alone - many parents and children are struggling with homework these days. A good book about it is called The End of Homework.

I used to dread homework. I would have to sit with him and go over everything. It would take 2 hours.

After interactive metronome he does homework himself with a little help once and awhile and it usually takes less than 30 minutes.

There was one other change that happened around the same time as interactive metronome; the homework that took a long time was the very dull sped homework. It included rainbow spelling which involved writing out each spelling word with different color crayons or writing a word for each letter of the spelling word. It was tortuous.

I took him out of sped and the reg ed teacher gives homework based on what they did that day. There is no dull, pointless, busy work.

He did have to write sentences before and after interactive metronome and the time it took to write the sentences was reduced significantly. He can do it in under 10 minutes without any help. Before IM it took 1/2 hour and I had to sit there and help.

We did rainbow words with the computer. SHe just re-typed the same word in a different color. - The teacher accepted it.

I explained to the teacher that we won’t be doing this because it took too long and it interferred with phonographix which actually was helping him learn to read.

She never said another word about it and stopped sending it home. Of course, she would follow up with something equally inane and time consumming so I would just write another note.

I am sure you can imagine why I am so beloved at the school.

IF I am brag, I was just reading over my daughter’s questionnaire that she had to answer from class at school. It said, “Who is the greatest person you know?” She wrote, “My mom”. (Made my day - she doesn’t know I saw it - I think I’ll xerox a copy so I can keep it for when she’s a teenager :-) ).

YOu know what, Linda F, it really DOESN’T matter what the school personnel think of you. When you hve a child that feels good about himself/herself, is confident, is capable b/c of a mom that spent her child’s time doing things OF BENEFIT to him/her instead of these time consuming, innane homework assignments, it is worth it.

My daughter has a “different’ organizational system than the teacher wanted the kids to use. She told Jami, “Well, if it works for you…. it’s fine”. I credit her for being open minded.

Probably b/c she knows that mom will come in and help her broaden her thinking if she doesn’t.

Our kids are different, they think different and they need different strategies to be successful. We, as parents, know that and what those strategies need to be. I will do my best to cooperate with a teacher, but I won’t allow my daughter to waste her time and energy doing things that aren’t productive for her.

Hats off, Linda F!

Darcy,

Did the testing psychologist provide you with any recommendations (therapy, etc.?) for your daughter’s weaknesses? Did they recommend medication for attention? Just wondering. My son’s weaknesses sound similar (except maybe auditory memory - not sure about that one)and he also has a high IQ. He was last tested in late K and he’s now going into 4th. Was hoping various therapies would do the trick. They’ve helped but we’re not out of the woods. May have him re-tested soon. I really don’t want to medicate, that may be why I haven’t had him re-tested yet. At this point, my concerns are more in the social/behavior arena than academics.

Not that it really matters, but did you get a “diagnosis”? At the time, we were told he may have NLVD, but he was too young for that diagnosis (still developing). We had some additional testing done after his IQ testing and his weakest area was visual motor.

Hi

My son 16 now, has Tics from all the med doctors told me to give and changing med finding the right one. Now besides all his learning disabilities he has tics…..So my advice..find another way without meds theres are alot of other ways u can help your child…..

best wishes
sara007

Darcy -

My situation is pretty similar to Kay’s. Like your daughter our son also has problems with written tasks, processing speed, and basic math computation.

It is a common misconception that a child with a high IQ should be able to do certain types of work as quickly as anyone else, certainly as well as an child with an average IQ. But a child with LDs and a high IQ may truly struggle with tasks we consider so simple. My son also has a moderately high IQ and had trouble adding or subtracting 1 or 2 from anything until he was 12. The tasks will take them longer because they aren’t using the part of the brain that most people use for that task, or because they have trouble storing, processing, or retrieving the information.

If they have distractibility on top of this, it makes for a long night of homework. Medication will not make the processing weaknesses go away so time to complete tasks will still be longer, but for our son it dramatically cut back on the distractibility and improved his ability to do it on his own without me having to sit there and get his attention back to the task every 30 seconds. Our son is on stimulant medication, so I don’t have experience with the new non-stimulant medications. The medication helped turn his school experiences from a spiraling cycle of failures into a cycle of increasing successes.

To get homework to be less stressful, I went into the school and demanded a reduced work amount. (We were doing 3 hours of homework every night and up to 8 hours over the weekend.) Sometimes they would give it to me willingly, other times not. When they didn’t want to, I just decided on my own when we’d worked enough and I just initialed the paper and put “Worked 45 minutes.” He was already getting C’s in everything even doing 20 hours of homework a week. I realized he could probably keep getting C’s even if we only did 5 hours of homework a week (and sure enough - no change in grades). We would only work on homework as long as it was a positive learning time, otherwise I would say - that’s enough. Also, I did all the stupid busy work that makes the time add up (and adds to the distractibility). Scissoring, web searches, typing… I let him do the thinking, and I did the grunt work. We had so much homework I know other mothers of non-LD children in his class were actually doing the homework for them, but that’s where I draw the line.

I would recommend not being judgmental about how long it takes her. It will take her as long as it takes. Try to send positive messages about what she accomplishes even if it is less than every one else gets done or takes longer.

Also I find evening is the worst time to do homework. His mind seems to race in the evening. Afternoon is better (but of course I was never home at that time of day!).

~aj

[quote=”sara007”]Hi

My son 16 now, has Tics from all the med doctors told me to give and changing med finding the right one. Now besides all his learning disabilities he has tics

Current research shows that stimulant medications do not directly cause tics, although they may exacerbate or unmask tics in those who are already susceptible to them. The greatest risk of this is with short-acting stimulants like ritalin. Longer acting stimulants have a smoother onset and wear off more smoothly as well, which is thought to minimize the tic risk. Tics are a sign of neurological impairment and they are more common in the ADHD population. Those with Tourette’s syndrome commonly exhibit ADHD symptoms. Transient tic disorder of childhood is also quite common.

Stimulants are not necessarily ruled out for a child with a tic disorder. In some cases where the stimulant is having an otherwise positive effect for the child, the tics can be controlled with additional medications. It is common for children with Tourette’s, for example, to be treated with stimulants and with additional meds for tics. Sometimes stimulants improve rather than exacerbate tics. My son exhibited various motor tics as a younger child, all of which actually disappeared when he began taking stimulant medication. So far as I know, nonstimulant medications such as those the original poster was asking about do not cause or exacerbate tics. They may be a good choice for a child whose tics become intolerable while taking stimulant medications, or as a first-line choice for those who have concerns about tics.

Andrea

I have a bit of a problem with the issue over tics. Many suggest trialing meds because the meds don’t directly cause the tics but only encourage the manifestation of the tics that are already present.

This to me is semantics. If the tics weren’t obvious before meds and they become obvious after meds then the meds caused the tics to manifest.

Such side effects can be permanent and should be considered before med trials are undergone.

If a child has obvious LD’s I would suggest addressing the LDs directly to see if the LDs themselves are causing the problems with attention.

[quote=”Linda F.”]Such side effects can be permanent and should be considered before med trials are undergone.

If a child has obvious LD’s I would suggest addressing the LDs directly to see if the LDs themselves are causing the problems with attention.[/quote]

Linda,

In the vast majority of children who develop tics while on stimulants, the tics disappear when the medication is stopped. The recent research into tics and stimulants was meant to address the concern that stimulants could cause Tourette’s syndrome in children who would otherwise never have it. It showed that stimulants merely unmasked a weakness or tendency that already existed in particular children. Many of these children would develop tics regardless of stimulant use, but it is certainly possible them some would not have done so without stimulant use. For that reason, it seems wise to me that those choosing to medicate a child who already has tics start with a non-stimulant such Strattera. If Strattera had been available when my son began taking medication for his ADHD, I definitely would have chosen it over stimulant medication. As it has turned out, the stimulants have worked well for him, so we are not switching. If the non-stimulants don’t work, however, stimulants may still be a good choice even for a child with tics. Of course, as you point out, making sure to rule out LD or other problems that may mimic ADHD is absolutely critical . No one should ever diagnose or rule out ADHD on the basis of how a child responds to medication, stimulants or otherwise.

Andrea

My son didnt have tics before meds or any signs of tic , when i starting meds for ADHD and switched meds ,the tics started. I guess its the side effects of some meds..Now besides his learning proclems we cant control his tics…. But anyways thanks for the info.

sara007 :cry:

Welcome to the board

1. Educate yourself in ADHd and LD’s. you are going to be your child’s case manager. The more you know, the better treatment and services your child will get. This job cannot be left to educational or medical people.

2. Get a thorough diagnosis- both medical and educational.

A great book to read is Daniel Amen’s Healing ADD - very informative.

Good Luck