Learning Disability/ADHD/Not to sure what to think

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   sillygoobermommyposted 13 years ago

   My eldest son is seven years old. He's a little slow, but making progress. When he was young he'd say some words, but not enough for me to understand. I took him to a place to have his speech checked out when he was three. He still gets his speech. It has helped majorly in many ways. He's just slowly learning how to read. They want me to push harder, but what good would that do. I don't want to undo any progress that he is making.
   He started in preschool when he was three. I wanted him to be able to learn and be able to socialize with other kids.
   It helped some, but it didn't fully prepare him for school like I thought it would.
   When he started Kindergarten I started noticing his attention span wasn't fully there. If something else was going on he would be easily distracted. He was also hyper active and bouncing off the walls. It was getting out of control.
   He was constantly in trouble. I didn't know what to do.
   I'd talk to him about his behaviour. He wasn't grasping it though. It would get me frustrated.
   That same year I was told to take him to some behavioral place to have them look into it.
   Right off the get go they wanted to say he was ADHD. They didn't do much of an evaluation. They wanted to put him on medecine. I told that doctor no that I wasn't ready for that,and would try something else.
   I don't think I've seen a doctor nearly fall out of a chair, but that one did just because I told him no I wasn't going to put my son on medecine at that time.
   Time passed and we took him to a developmental clinic.
   They told I should try put him to bed earlier. Told me the appropriate bedtime, and how much sleep they should be getting.
   We also talked about diet and different things to work with it.
   Close to the end of the school year I saw that there was no change, and he was still distracted. I decided okay I'll give medecine a try. I didn't want to because when I was younger I was diognosed with ADD and my medecine made me feel like a zombie.
   He has both forms of ADHD. Where it's hard for him to concentrate and hyper.
   He started taking Focalin and takes 10mgs. I noticed a drastic change in his attitude. He wasn't getting in as much trouble and he was learning better.
   Well he ended up being held back in Kindergarten. He gets resource class,speech therapy, and physical therapy at school.
   After school twice a week he gets one on one speech and occupational therapy. It has helped him out so much.
   His second round of Kindergarten was much better. He slowly came out of his shell.
   This year he's in first grade. He's doing good in school.
   Though he's been having melt downs. He will tell me things like he has no friends.
   He had one kid bullying him during centers telling him things like shut up, hush, and copying him. The teacher told me talk to him because he would have melt downs in class and disrupt class.
   I brought it to her attention what was going on and she changed his centers partner. Since then he's done better.
   Every now and then he still says he don't have friends.
   There are times where he tells me he don't want to go to school which I don't get at times because he loves school. He loves to learn.
   I recently got him some counceling. He worries me.
   There are days where he tells me he don't eat his lunch and that worries me because I want him to eat at school.
   I try my best to keep on top of everything because if I don't who will.
   I know it has to be hard for him when it comes to making friends and I know he has to be aggitated since he's still not very good at verbalizing himself. I work with him as much as I can. I'm just lucky that he does have a teacher whose good at comunicating with me.

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      Kotoriposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Just a thought: It sounds like your son might have a bullying issue.  The red flags for me were the parts where he said he didn't eat lunch some days, didn't want to go to school some days, and that his centers partner was being cruel.  Could this be an ongoing problem with more than just that student?
      
      As far as making friends at school, work with him on joining activities that others are doing.  Instead of asking to join a group playing ball, for example, he could catch the ball when it strays.  But I also agree with Lisa that some outside of school activities would really benefit him.  He needs to find something that he is good at; something he can do that will put him in natural situations where friendships are possible.

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2. 62

   Lisa HWposted 13 years ago

   Little kids who have trouble "going with the program" in school often have trouble making friends, because the other kids are too little to understand that one child has a problem.  They're too little to overlook behavior that isn't "like everyone else". Since he's 7, maybe it would help if you could get him into an activity outside school, where sitting down and doing "school things" isn't involved.  Maybe Little League (I know it's not Little League season right now, but it's an example for Spring).  Maybe a martial arts class with a bunch of other little kids.  Maybe gymnastics for young children.  Anything that would let him meet other kids, be in a situation where sitting down and working quietly wasn't an issue, and where he'd get the chance to be able to "go with the program" enough that it may make him feel good about himself (as well as feel like he's a part of a group or a team). 
   
   If you don't already do this, maybe it would help him some to get more practice sitting and playing quietly with you (and maybe his brother too) at home; doing something like sitting together and playing Legos or drawing.  Talking about what you're building or drawing may help him polish up his speech skills, get some practice sitting quietly, and experiencing that sit-down play can really be enjoyable.   Getting the pleasant time and attention with you couldn't hurt either.  I had a friend who had a five-year-old who had been diagnosed (at a hospital) with ADHD, and when the child came to my house she sat and played with my kids' nice Lego set every bit as long, and as well, as my kids and their cousins (none of whom had ADHD). 
   
   Maybe it would help if you set aside, say, "quiet time" from dinner time on, and maybe (again, if you don't already do this) said something like, "It's a new school year, and the school work is going to be kind of different now that you're older.  We need to make after-dinner time a calming-down time so we can sleep better at night.  Let's play at the table until 7:00, and then we start baths."   If he starts to leave too soon, maybe say, "Hey, let's just play for another fifteen minutes before you leave."   Besides giving him just that much more structure to at least that part of the day, it may help if you set a time that you'd like to start and end playing to help him get practice with a little time structure, and waiting for a few minutes before acting.   
   
   I'm not at all saying I think anyone should structure any child's day so he's on schedule and being told what to do all day long.   I'm just saying I think there's a chance he might be helped (if you don't already do this) if you added just this little extra bit of sit-down time after dinner.  If he's got any "homework" for school, that would be another chance for him to get practice sitting and talking with you about what he's doing.  Between those two "sit-down times" and whatever sit-down meals he has, he'd be getting those small, structured, "lumps" of time, broken up over the course of a day.
   
   Something else is that if a child (or adult, for that matter) feels stressed out in school, it can make him have concentration problems.  I imagine, since he's been evaluated, someone has figured out if he's a visual learner or an auditory learner.  If he learns more easily by having someone talk quietly to him, it might help him if he tries whispering the words and numbers he's working on and listening to what he's whispering to himself. 
   
   I've had stress-related concentration problems reading, and I've found that whispering what I'm reading helps me get what I'm reading better (and I was never a kid who had any reading problems in school whatsoever; this is something recent for me).  I figured out that trying to get the messages from the book/screen to my brain seems to require more "work" on the part of my brain.  If I just get the message (from the book) to my ears, it's when I whisper what I'm hearing myself say that I ca then get the message from my ears to my brain.
   
   In other words, It's kind of like breaking up the job of getting the message from the book to the brain into steps.   
   
   Just some thoughts.  I don't know if it would help, if you already do this kind of thing, or if anyone else on here may find it helpful.

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3. 90

   Polly Cposted 13 years ago

   I watched a programme on kids with ADHD once - though this is not in any way supposed to be a solution, the parents of one teenage boy bought him a trampoline for the back garden - he loved it and was able to bounce off a lot of excess energy that would cause him to 'bounce off the walls'.
   
   Of course that is not something that will fix all your problems, but your post just made me think of it.

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4. 61

   joaniembposted 13 years ago

   I feel your pain, my son is 25 and has a learning disability. He struggled through school all of the years, I too stayed on top of it and kept in close touch with his teachers. The problem I had was he hated being pulled out for speech and resource because it made him different than the other kids. He had some friends in school but not many. Now that he is a grown man he has many friends and a wonderful job.
   
   As a parent I know you worry it is your child.
   
   You are on the right path. The first step in admitting that something is wrong with your child is hard and you did that and had him evaluated. Putting your child on meds is a tough decision but if it helps them get through the daily life routine then you did the right thing. You work with him at home and have a good relationship with the teacher and that is key so you know what is going on in school and if something is bothering your little one.
   
   I did write a hub about my sons learning disability and how he now shines with the great work he is able to do and a great personality.
   
   Keep up the good work with your son and the outcome will be something you will be very proud of.

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5. 58

   ginasandsposted 13 years ago

   Learning disability and ADHD are two entirely different animals.  Children with a learning disability learn in a different way.  Children who have ADHD are too distracted to pay attention to those boring teachers.
   
   They are distracted and usually distract others.  They think in multiple patterns and their thought processes are not always cohesive.
   
   Although many schools just lump all the kinds who have issues together, they usually don't take the time or energy to differentiate between learning styles.  No one wants to sit in class and listen to a robot drone on and on about something that happened 200 years ago.  Use multimedia to teach our kids, they would eliminate the problems with children who supposedly have a learning disability.  They are unable to sit still and listen to boring... but these same children can analyze a video game in record time and sit for hours playing this game.
   
   What if they could learn history by playing a video game?

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