As many of you know, having a child with ADHD or working memory issues creates a challenge when trying to get them to take responsibility for multi-instruction tasks. We have had a difficult time getting our son to be independent and to take on responsibility. Some of this is probably our fault. He works so hard with his learning disabilities and ADD that we probably baby him too much otherwise. However, he was begging – BEGGING for a guinea pig. Even though we really did not have ANY desire to have another pet in the house (we have a Havanese dog and a Beta fish), we decided to use the opportunity to teach responsibility and to increase his independence.
At the pet store, we made a very hard deal with my son. He had to take responsibility for caring for the guinea pig with my help. If he did not, then we were going to give the guinea pig away and he was going to have to pay us back for the cost out of his allowance. We emphasized the deal several times and made him repeat it back to us several times before we even bought the guinea pig. So we bought the guinea pig and named him Charlie. Read the rest of this entry »
ADD & Loving It?! is a refreshing, witty and inspiring documentary about adult Attention Deficit Disorder (also known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD). The one-hour film, which will be broadcast on Canwest Global Television in the fall, is hosted by actor/comedian Patrick McKenna and written, produced and directed by fellow comedian, Rick Green.
ADD & Loving It?! explores and explains the disorder by following Patrick’s journey for a diagnosis so he can confirm what he’s always suspected – that he has ADD. Along the way, Patrick and his wife Janis open up about their challenges and struggles, something Janis admits “we’ve spent our whole lives trying to hide.”
Patrick notes, “Some people think the diagnosis is the kiss of death, while others think there’s no such thing; it’s nothing, it’s all made up.” But after talking with the experts and with ordinary people, as well as drawing from his own experience, he confirms that ADD is real. It’s genetic, it can destroy lives, and adults with ADD have a higher rate of accidents, addictions, suicide, bankruptcy, divorce, illegal drug use and financial problems. Read the rest of this entry »
Becky
I am… wife to a wonderful husband, mother to 2 awesome boys, daughter to fabulous parents, sister to 2 phenomenal women, friend to many… and a child of God.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Easy Essays
I stumbled upon this site this week and it has been a huge help to my older son who is not formally diagnosed but has mild ADHD symptoms. He really struggles with planning his thoughts and getting started on writing. He is in 5th grade this year and they are doing weekly essays – yeah more work for mom! I had a discussion with him yesterday about needing to do his essay before soccer practice and he complained that it would take too long and there was no way he could get it done before soccer… but when I got home, the essay was completed thanks to this wonderful FREE site! He said he did it in less than 30 minutes and it was the first time the essay actually flowed properly. Three cheers for The Easy Essay website!
In this video I share what we have immediately seen with medication for our son’s ADD. It is a testimonial for anyone consider medication for their child.
I wanted to provide you with a quick update on our journey with ADD. As of a couple of weeks ago, we put our son on Adderall on a very low dose. The results have been immediate! Although I agree that ADHD and ADD are overused terms in our society, ADHD truly is a neurological disorder that can respond quite well to medication.
We were lucky. Our son responded immediately to the first medication we put him on. We realize that as he grows, we will probably need to modify or switch medications. Each medication’s efficacy is relative to each individual’s body chemistry.
Our first day that we put him on medication, we immediately noticed that he was much more task oriented than he had ever been; he was highly communicative and his responses to others were much more empathetic. This may sound like a silly example but on the first day of medication, he peeled an entire cucumber by himself and presented it at the dinner table. He had never done anything like that before. Read the rest of this entry »
Wow, the response to last week’s post, What I Would Want a Mother of a Typical Needs Child to Know” (http://www.lipstickwisdom.com/2009/09/15/what-would-i-want-a-mother-of-a-typical-needs-child-to-know/), has been tremendous. I have seemingly been able to verbalize in my post what many mothers of special needs children feel in their daily life. Frustration with a lack of understanding and consideration is a common feeling among those of us with special needs children.
What, in my opinion, are the two most often cited sources of frustration and lack of understanding? I feel they are extended family and the school system. So I have been asking myself for days – how can I help to educate those who don’t know and don’t understand? Read the rest of this entry »
Recently a question was posed on the web which asked, as a mother of a special needs child, what would you want a mother of a typical needs child to understand? As a mother to both a special needs child and a typical needs child, I found the question very difficult to answer.
Recently there was a discussion question put out on the web which asked what I would want a mother of a typical needs child to know about mothering a special needs child. As a mother to both a typical needs child and a special needs child, this question is really difficult to answer. Our son has both learning disabilities and ADD.
I have to say that I have written and re-written my answer probably a dozen of times. Finally, I think my answer comes down to what I feel is obvious. What mothers of typical needs children, family and friends need to understand is that we, families of special needs children, need understanding and consideration of our situation. Not unlike those with physically visible handicaps, those with invisible to the eye special needs require consideration, accommodations, respect and understanding. Invisible special needs can make daily situations no less daunting than for those with physical handicaps. Read the rest of this entry »
Working memory problems seem to be prevalent in those with ADHD and learning disabilities. Mainstream thinking to date has been that a person’s working memory is rigid and cannot be changed. Recently research is changing that thinking and software based training may, in fact, improve an individual’s working memory. I will share my experiences in future videos and I try out what is currently available.
I am soooooo confused!! I have heard so many terms associated with our son’s issues that I am really really confused. ADD, language processing issues, expressive language processing issues, receptive language processing issues, Dyslexia, and visual memory processing. Then there is the list of potential problems – dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dysphasia. What the h— does it all mean? You read the symptoms of any number of issues and you start to believe that you are a hypochondriac!! I know hypochondriac is not the right word here but you get what I mean.
So 6 nights a week, we work together for an hour and a half. Reading, writing, word rings, spelling words, math problems, and language arts work sheets. It is all about repetition, repetition, practice and practice. Read the rest of this entry »
Evaluations. Academic Tests. The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III. Cognitive Testing (WPPSI-III). The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency. And the list goes on …
Have you ever read an evaluation report sharing the results of such tests? What is desperately needed is evaluation results that are written in PLAIN ENGLISH. “Plain English” is a generic term for communication styles that emphasize clarity, brevity and the avoidance of technical language.
Academic evaluators should be required to report their results in Plain English. I have been through two rounds of full evaluations of my son. While I basically grasped the learning issues that my son has – I have never fully understood the results of these tests. Why? For some reason, the evaluators keep the language in the report in their academic context and do not report the results in plain English. I understand that verbal memory is the retention of the spoken word and a relative percentage score associated with that. I do not understand a scaled score of “4” on digit span!!
Ever feel like you have just had a V8 moment? I recently did when I realized that ANY change in activity is a “transition” for my son. For a while, I have known that a change in our normal routine such as going away for the weekend, going on vacation or starting back at school were transitions and could produce great anxiety for our son.
Now that he has been officially diagnosed with ADD (ADHD – inattentive), I realize that any change in activity is a transition. Different types of transitions produce different levels of reaction but it has now entered my consciousness that I need to prepare him for transitioning from play time to dinner as much as I need to prepare him for a new activity or going away for the weekend.
Major Transitions or New Activities
Vacations and traveling weekend plans have consistently caused much anxiety with our son. To address this, we have always talked through the travel plans in detail extensively before the actual trip. Where are we going, how long we going to be there, what we are going to do while there, where will we sleep, where will we eat and so forth. We typically discuss the travel plans for a week or two before leaving. Sometimes we also play act the new situation. We dress up and pretend we are leaving for our plans at that moment and play through what is going to occur. Read the rest of this entry »
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