4 ms·

This article describes a problem or behavior that I don’t see with ADHD (note: I am raising an ADHD child). What I observe are these two problems: 1. Poor read

This article describes a problem or behavior that I don’t see with ADHD (note: I am raising an ADHD child). What I observe are these two problems: 1. Poor reading comprehension. 2. Disqualified completion. Disqualified completion means the inability to differentiate poor completion rates (actually completing the material) from a loss of interest resulting in poor completion thereby believing the material is completely read when either it was never read or is entirely lost from memory. The behaviors are interesting to observe because the child with ADHD appears to read with ease even if there is nothing to show for it, as in no memory of the material. I have raised children with dyslexia who struggle to read anything but know exactly what they have read, an opposite behavior. Notes and hints do not appear to be a solution for the ADHD related behaviors. What we are trying to work on is persistence such that an uninteresting focus becomes excruciatingly exhausting very quickly. We try to remove talking, excuses, bullshitting, and unrelated movements from the event of focus to practice increasing focus duration. Eventually we want to get to a spot where the child can self identify when focus is lost so that they can stop the focused activity at hand, take a quick break, and then resume the activity. We aren’t there yet. The biggest challenge is eliminating excuses and justifications that prioritize the distractions over the activity of focus. In a person without ADHD these sorts of qualifiers would come across as deceit or lies, but for a person with ADHD these behaviors appear to be a self regulator for emotional continuity that occurs arrhythmic to the focus by which emotions are generated.

jacobolus 6y ago
How much time have you spent reading aloud to your kid? Does the kid have the same trouble following material heard read aloud that they have for material they are reading themselves? * * * Anecdotally the times in the past when I would forget material I was reading came from either being profoundly sleep deprived (e.g. pulling an all-nighter in college) or mentally highly engaged with some other idea/problem and therefore extremely distracted while trying to read. More recently (I have a 4-year-old) I have been doing lots of reading of kids books, and have developed the new ability to read a familiar (or unfamiliar but simple) picture book aloud including funny voices for all of the characters etc. from start to finish, while working on an unrelated problem in my head, and end up with no memory of what I read in the picture book or what happened. Reading picture books is apparently (sometimes) now separate enough from my conscious attention that the effect is almost like short-term memory loss.
- austincheney 6y ago
  I have been reading more aloud to the child at night for about 20-30 minutes before bed. Sometimes the material is well received other times the child has snuck a book or device into bed and has no idea what was read. I haven’t determined how well the information is retained yet. On an unrelated note playing games with the child results in conditions that look like sleep deprivation. They cannot slow the game down with excess talking or bullshitting and after about 10 minutes become utterly exhausted forgetting the game rules and wanting to lay their head on the board. I do understand that some level of mental fatigue is common to children that age, but it appears intensely amplified in the child with ADHD especially compared to dyslexic children who seem to have a longer period of focus than normal.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    One thing I learned tutoring fellow students in math while in high school / college was that trying to do hard unfamiliar things (or just something they didn’t choose to do) makes plenty of people who do not have ADHD feel overwhelmed/fearful/anxious/tired, especially when they are put on the spot. Some people have a “play dead” kind of response to stress, while others get angry and start fighting. It’s not clear to what extent these board game / reading issues are related to ADHD per se. Plenty of people with ADHD are excellent at learning/playing board games and are fast fluent readers with careful attention to detail and excellent retention of what they read.
    - tgaj 6y ago
      To be honest, inattention to details is one of typical symptoms of ADHD. So there are probably people with ADHD who do not have this problem, but I would say that most of the time they are probably misdiagnosed.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

jacobolus 6y ago

How much time have you spent reading aloud to your kid? Does the kid have the same trouble following material heard read aloud that they have for material they are reading themselves? * * * Anecdotally the times in the past when I would forget material I was reading came from either being profoundly sleep deprived (e.g. pulling an all-nighter in college) or mentally highly engaged with some other idea/problem and therefore extremely distracted while trying to read. More recently (I have a 4-year-old) I have been doing lots of reading of kids books, and have developed the new ability to read a familiar (or unfamiliar but simple) picture book aloud including funny voices for all of the characters etc. from start to finish, while working on an unrelated problem in my head, and end up with no memory of what I read in the picture book or what happened. Reading picture books is apparently (sometimes) now separate enough from my conscious attention that the effect is almost like short-term memory loss.

austincheney 6y ago
I have been reading more aloud to the child at night for about 20-30 minutes before bed. Sometimes the material is well received other times the child has snuck a book or device into bed and has no idea what was read. I haven’t determined how well the information is retained yet. On an unrelated note playing games with the child results in conditions that look like sleep deprivation. They cannot slow the game down with excess talking or bullshitting and after about 10 minutes become utterly exhausted forgetting the game rules and wanting to lay their head on the board. I do understand that some level of mental fatigue is common to children that age, but it appears intensely amplified in the child with ADHD especially compared to dyslexic children who seem to have a longer period of focus than normal.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  One thing I learned tutoring fellow students in math while in high school / college was that trying to do hard unfamiliar things (or just something they didn’t choose to do) makes plenty of people who do not have ADHD feel overwhelmed/fearful/anxious/tired, especially when they are put on the spot. Some people have a “play dead” kind of response to stress, while others get angry and start fighting. It’s not clear to what extent these board game / reading issues are related to ADHD per se. Plenty of people with ADHD are excellent at learning/playing board games and are fast fluent readers with careful attention to detail and excellent retention of what they read.
  - tgaj 6y ago
    To be honest, inattention to details is one of typical symptoms of ADHD. So there are probably people with ADHD who do not have this problem, but I would say that most of the time they are probably misdiagnosed.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]