Hello,
My question concerns an adult student diagnosed with ADD.
While the student has seen improvement with medication, behavior management, and
environment modification in areas like focusing on tasks, staying organized, and
planning time, she still has marked difficulties at the college level. These
mainifest particularly as poor reading comprehension/trouble learning from
books, slow expression (written and oral), difficulty following directions
(written and oral), and trouble remembering math formulas. The student does not
seem to have the classic symptoms of dyslexia since she can decode quickly,
phonetically or using sight words, and her spelling is good. She had some
testing that also revealed very strong visual-spatial skills, so NLD seems
unlikely. The student has subjectively described the problem as seeming like a
difficulty connecting the words (in graphical or auditory forms) with their
meanings (same for math symbols) despite having a very high IQ and no problems
with “superficial” decoding. The student has also mentioned that there seems to
be a time lag in processing what is heard or read - she can “hear” or “read” the
words quickly, but they are not fully processed, and she cannot easily moderate
her reading speed to match her rate of comprehension.
Since various therapies have helped many of the major ADD symptoms, is it
possible that these continuing problems
are related to a subtle learning disability? It seems like there may be some
processing speed issues since the ability to comprehend is there, it’s just not
happening at the rate it seems like it should given the student’s motivation,
preparation, and overall intelligence. The student is also acutely aware that
problems exist, but doesn’t know to what to attribute them nor how to get around
them. I know there are tests like “rapid naming” of letters and numbers, which
can be problematic for some with LDs, but is it also possible that a student who
does not have difficulty at the “recognition” level could have a processing
problem at the “association of visually- or auditorially-recognized word with
its meaning” level (for both decoding and encoding)? Is this a language problem,
or something else? How could such a deficit be substantiated and remediated
and/or circumvented in a college environment? What teaching strategies might be
employed to help the student “access” the material (I am particularly interested
in strategies applicable to science instruction and am already aware of the
student’s “visual” and “kinesthetic” preferences)? What strategies could you
recommend for the student?
Thank you.
Re: ADD/processing speed?
The ADHD meds, when they work, often only temporarily improve part of the challenge (not the whole challenge). In some cases symptoms/conditions like Central Auditory Processing Disorder/CAPD/Auditory Processing Disorder/APD can only be eventually correctly identified but not ~ corrected or changed very much at all.
Sometimes it takes time to discover how much of the condition a medicine can temporarily improve and how much the medicine cannot help at all/very much at all. Some challenges may have to be worked around vs trying to work through because the underlying difficulty is ~ permanent.
Best wishes.
The Nelson Denny Reading assessment is one battery that is used to pinpoint reading deficits for ADD individuals.. What other assessments have been done? What has the correlation been between prior IQ tests and processing speeds? Has an assistive listening device been used to help focus during lectures? Does she know how to outline the material she is reading? Have audio tapes been used with the text that she can read along with to help with her pacing of reading and comprehension?? What current learning strategies is she using?
Language and visualization could be an issue, as well as new vocabulary is taxing the ability to comprehend. One really can’t be fluent in college text if they don’t have the vocabulary down. I do not have literacy level comprehension for a law school or chemistry program…yes, I can decode the material but if I don’t understand the vernacular I am not going to have decent comprehension. On the other hand, I am literate in regards to speech and language and reading issues…
It is quite common for ADD students who are in College to struggle with reading. Do some journal searches as you do your research to document various theories that have been tried. Perhaps your student has a wandering mind when she is reading..decoding material but her mind isn’t there on the material it is on other more exciting venues…
Perhaps she is studying too late in the day or waiting until the last minute to cram the material in. She needs to have a very structured environment free of distractions when she is studying material. Perhaps a study group would be of benefit for this student so that she can verbalize the Science material that she is reading. Usually students who are Ld do better in science because it is more hands on.. Good luck on your research paper…