Archive for July, 2009
July 11th, 2009 | 
Author: Is it better for a person with dyslexia to get special help when they are young or older? If a person with dyslexia tries to get by in school by compensation methods, will that cause more harm when they are older?
If it is better, then why are there still people who use compensation methods to get by in school if this will just create more problems?
Yes, the earlier the intervention the better. However, there are no cures for learning disabilities (Dyslexia), so one of the best things we can do is teach children to compensate as soon as possible. The more they can use strategies that assist them with learning, the better off they will be. There will come a time when there is no one to do this for them and they must know how to do it for themselves.
Interestingly, we have gifted children who have various learning disabilities and often they think of their own strategies to get around their learning problems.
Unfortunately, special ed has hit hard times and most teachers are just interested in how much they can jam into a kid’s head. Teaching them strategies that will help them go forward on their own aren’t happening anymore.
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My 7 year old son shows the classic ADHD symptoms and I started him on Sea Buddies Concentrate yesterday (minimum dosage). He is a big boy, so I am sure we will need to give him more that the recommended starting dosage (you may give up to 10). We have also started him on DHA. How long should it be before I start to notice a change? And is there something better than Concentrate? What about Focus Factor?
I would first recommend sticking with the recommended dose unless a doctor says otherwise… too much of a good thing isn’t always a better thing and may actually hurt him in the long run to take too much.
In general, supplements may take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get into the system enough to notice a difference. Supplements literally give your body nutrition it’s otherwise lacking, so it takes time for your body to use that nutrition to repair any damage it can and to nourish those specific areas of the body.
For something as severe as ADHD, it may take a few weeks to notice a positive change, but I have read a lot of research that shows how much Fish Oil (like is in the Sea Buddies Concentrate) can help kids with ADHD. You should see good benefits soon enough, but they will be pretty gradual, so you may just realize "hey, he hasn’t done ___ for a while" one day… that’s how I noticed that Fish Oil was helping me (and Ginkgo, but that’s not generally safe for a child). Good luck to you both!
This is another question regarding autism, and there are more individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome/HFA entering college. I was wondering why no individual with classic autism is or will be attending college?
There is a difference between high-functioning autism/Asperger’s Syndrome and classic autism. Classic autism, individuals develop language late in life or not at all, unlike AS/HFA where individuals develop language earlier in life.
It is not true that no individual with classic autism attends college. Some individuals with classic autism DO go to college or enroll in online college courses. Not everyone with autism can go to college though, for various reasons, such as:
- Some have severe cognitive disabilities, so the studies would be too complicated for them.
- Some have a severe speech delay, so they cannot communicate well or even at all. They may not understand speech well either.
- Some cannot read and write, due to cognitive disabilities.
- Some don’t know how to interact with other people.
- Some have behavior issues.
- Some have really bad sensory issues, so they couldn’t handle that sensory environment.
- Some have a very short attention span.
- Some don’t want to go to college.
- Some have been underestimated and have not had enough learning opportunities to prepare them for college, because of other people’s low expectations of them. It’s sometimes hard to know how much the autistic person understands if they cannot communicate well.
Whether or not they can go to college depends a lot on how well the individual can function. Colleges accept students that need reasonable accommodations. Sometimes reasonable accommodations are simply not enough, so some people (whether they are autistic or not) are unable to attend college. Colleges don’t change the curriculum for students who can’t handle the normal curriculum for whatever reason.
As a Tampa Chiropractor I’ve witnessed plenty of fidgeting children in my office. When children just can’t seem to get their arms and legs into a comfortable position, the first thing most adults want to say (or want to say) is “sit still!” But such continuous movement, it turns out, may actually help children, and adults as well, to stay more focused. Whether you know a child who can’t sit still, or you’re the one who fidgets, I think that you will find the following article extremely interesting.
learning While Fidgeting: ADHD
Do you remember being a school child and having some difficulty sitting still after a certain amount of time? I certainly do. In fact, I remember the oncer per week assembly when I was in elementary school. It was required that we all sit up, feet flat on the floor and elbows off of the elbow rest. I never could understand the wisdom behind not being allowed to use the elbow rests to rest our elbows. But, the rule was strictly enforced. I had great difficulty with this because I wanted to fidget and so did all of my classmates. Worse than that, we had to pay attention. There were times when we were told things that we were required to repeat to our parents that evening. As much as I struggled to pay attention and remember, the message went by me with the speed of light. I often asked and even begged my classmates, after assembly, what the message was. Depending on whether they were in a mood to torture me or not, my friends just might repeat the message to me. You see, it is not that I forgot the message. Rather, I never heard the message. But, the worst part of the whole thing was being told to “sit still.” Try as I might, I just could not. I had to fidget!
Even now, my wife will ask me, “why are you jiggling?” And my answer is always: “Uh, I don’t know.”
I am now 66 years of age. When I was a child in elementary school, no one ever heard of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). To be specific, I had the ADD part of the problem with very little hyperacitivity (except for the jiggle), but just enough to get me in trouble by talking a little too much and feeling the need to put my elbows on the elbow rest. There were many instructions that I simply never heard and, therefore, got things wrong. It got to the point where I suspected that I might just be dumb. I was not dumb, but I had and still have ADD. At some point in my school life I learned to compenstate for my problems without realizing that this was what I was doing. In other words, with no diagnosis but a suspicion about myself that something was wrong, I taught myself ways to get and retain the informaton that I needed. That is how I got through graduate school with two Master’s degrees and a PhD.
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A recent, small but significant study revealed the possibility that allowing ADHD kids to squirm is better for them than demanding that they sit still. Counter to the old school maxim, “sit still and pay attention,” the study indicates that letting them squirm helps them pay attention. Mark Rapport, University of Central Florida School Psychology Professor, conducted a small study using 23 boys ages 8 to 12 and took 4 years to meticulously study them. His study yielded some interesting data.
First, children with ADD cannot follow complicated instructions. If you tell them to open their book to page twelve, do problems 4,5,9 and and do not do the rest of them, the ADD children will forget everything after open the book to page twelve. Assignments must be given in segments so that their working memory is not over taxed. In addition, allowing the fidgeting may actually help these kids focus their attention instead of demanding that they sit still.
Ahhh, I really believe that if I had been allowed to jiggle away in elementary school I might have done a lot better by being better able to hear things.
Another recent study cited the fact that all elementary and middle school children perform better if they have had time during the day to get plenty of exercise.
Children with either ADD or ADHD are not stupid, lazy or unmotivated. They do not store memory in the same way others do and they need to be taught ways to help them remember what they must do. Teachers and parents have to help these kids learn how to compensate for these problems and keep in mind that these children are really not hearing or remembering compex instructions.
At the same time, all children need plenty of time to exercise and not just after school.
It seems that wiggling and exercising helps all of us improve our attention.
Article written by Allan N. Schwartz, LCSW, PhD on Sun, Apr 26th 2009
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