ADD: The Game Plan

School life

School Life
Children with ADD are most often evaluated in this area because the symptoms are commonly first noted by teachers. Too often teachers assume that the child with ADD would learn in the same manner as other students if not for the symptoms. I strongly encourage parents to investigate how their children best learn and to make certain their difficulties in school are truly related to ADD rather than other factors. Parents have to serve as advocates for their children because teachers and school officials are more likely to focus on their own needs and the needs of a class or a school instead of the individual needs and circumstances of ADD children. Although the schools may have the responsibility to assess each student, especially those with learning difficulties, resources are limited. It is also true that in many school systems, ADD is poorly understood and the reflex response is to demand that children be medicated to control their symptoms in class. I urge parents to seek expert advice and counseling before they medicate their children, whether from a psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, or rehabilitation therapist.

The list below contains the major areas of challenges for children with ADD sypmtoms.

Auditory Memory (Immediate, Recent, and Remote).
This is an assessment of how well your child remembers items told to her, such as numbers or words.

Fine Motor and Pacing Coordination.
This area of learning relates to how well the child can perform skills such as writing, drawing, and producing appropriate outputs.

Visual Memory.
This assesses the areas in which the student is required to remember what she was taught in visual presentations such as reading, observing concepts on the chalkboard, and understanding spatial relationships.

Embedded Audio Acuity.
This skill is usually very difficult for children with ADD because it calls for a person to listen to a wide variety of signals and pick out the important ones, as in listening to a story and hearing the main points of relevance.

Arithmetic Sequencing.
Although simple arithmetic problems usually represent no obvious challenges, they do require the student to remember to sequence the operations correctly, such as adding the columns in proper order or maintaining the numbers in proper arrangement.

Listening Concentration.
Probably one of the most difficult for children with ADD, this assessment requires the student to grasp the theme of a story and maintain the memories of characters and circumstances imparted by auditory presentation.

Reading Concentration.
This learning skill enables the student to remember the facts, characters, and themes of stories imparted by visual presentation.

Auditory Abstraction and Logic.
This skill enables a person to organize facts and questions in her head by receiving auditory information.

Visual Learning Capacity. These tasks measure how quickly a student can remember important visual information and reproduce the information in appropriate ways.

Abstract Tolerance.
This is the measure of the level of tolerance and endurance a student has in pursuing a solution to a problem that requires long-term commitment (the answer requires some long-term processing, similar to a mystery).