I went back to my counselor and she suggested getting him tested by someone else other than the school system to see if he has any other issues other than the ADD.
A very, very wise counselor. I don't know why more do not give parents this advise because co-existing conditions are the norm rather than the exception. There are very few pure cases of ADHD.
Our sd said difficult child didn't have any LDs also. You might need to review you child's report and the subtest scores from the school district. If you are unfamiliar with what the scores mean, post to the Special Education 101 forum.
The school tested him and he did not have any Learning Disability (LD) but he just seems to have a disconnect somewhere between brain and hand.
The school's testing may be 100% on target, but until you have difficult child privately tested do not accept it as an absolute. Additionally, LDs in very young and elementary age children sometimes do not surface as "significant" until middle-school and later.
yet I feel driven to find an explanation to what is going on in his head that makes sense to me.
been there done that. It's why I have several thousand links saved to an Excel spread sheet (many no longer active lol)and a home library on ADHD, et al. And interacting with-parents on this board has been invaluable.
He is so inconsistent that even the teachers are often stumped. One day he seems to know all the material they are teaching and the next he knows nothing. One day he comes home with A's, the next F's. It just doesn't make sense.
It makes perfect sense to me. About the only thing consistent with an ADHDer is their inconsistency. Even when ADHD medication works well, the medication helps but does not cure this characteristic.
It's the excuses that drive me crazy. He doesn't want to put something away because his sister used it, he doesn't want to do that because he's tired. I want to grab him by the ear and drag him around. I think that is where the most frustration is.
We each must have a twin..... lol I find myself less tolerant of inmaturity the older he gets. I have preached, "We are a family unit living in one home -- it doesn't matter. Put it up!"
"I'm too tired to do xyz" is an excuse difficult child uses also. Translation: I don't want to. In these instances, it is pure "excuse." But there are times when he is "too tired." I feel these instances are primarily attributable to residual fine/gross motor skill problems (aka motor apraxia, Coordination Development Disorder).
None of difficult child's dxs came as a surprise to me except gross motor skill delays. You could have knocked me over with a feather. difficult child had none of the obvious problems that a layperson can "see."
I point this out because fine/gross motor skill problems can co-exist with ADHD. Your child may not have motor skill problems, but it could be part of the puzzle. If your difficult child has ever had problems with delays in learning to crawl, walk, tying shoes, holding a pencil, using scissors, balance problems, general clumsiness, etc., it might be something you want to check out with a Pediatric Occupational Therapist.
He also can't put words to paper. If you ask him to explain something that might take you and I a paragraph, he would give you a sentence.
Again, we have twins. This was a symptom of my difficult child's fine motor skill delays AND Expressive Language Disorder. Handwriting was difficult for difficult child, so he avoided it (still does). Scribing for him helped tremendously when he was younger, however, that's was not treating the real problem -- he needed Occupational Therapist (OT) Therapy. It helped a lot.
Symptoms
Symptoms differ from one child to the next, and depend on the childs age and the severity of the disorder. Symptoms can include:
Frequently having trouble finding the right word
Using the wrong words in sentences or confusing meaning in sentences
Making grammatical mistakes and using poor sentence structure
Relying on short, simple sentence construction
Relying on stock standard phrases and limited content in speech
Inability to come to the point or talking in circles
Problems with retelling a story or relaying information
Inability to start or hold a conversation
Misnaming items - this is called dysnomia
Difficulty with oral and written work and school assignments in older children. </div></div>
Being that my husband is ADD I have talked to him about his experience in school. He was generally humiliated and struggled through all his years in school.
That happens more frequently than one would expect this day and time. A lot more is known today about disorders than in years past, but it continues to occur.
I'm a big fan of multidisciplinary evaluations. Sometimes I feel that parents don't get a good grasp of what that is, and it can get complicated because a multidisciplinary evaluation would not be the same for every child. Ideally, my son's MDE team would have consisted of Pediatrician, Child and Adolescent Psychologist, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Speech-Language Pathologist, Pediatric Occupational Therapist with-a subspecialty in Sensory Integration Disorder, and an Audiologist with-a subspecialty in Auditory Processing Disorder. We would have gotten to where we are today a whole lot quicker.
All these years later, I'm still angry at difficult child's 1st psychologist because he didn't tell me about co-existing conditions. He also didn't tell me during his evaluations he had identified possible language problems in a way that I could understand it. (Years later, I got a copy of difficult child's records and that info was in them.) All he said was that difficult child had ADHD, get Adderall from his pediatrician, and "If his behavior doesn't improve, bring him back. We'll turn him around in six months." What a joke....
The psychologist is very reputable, and very good at what he does. BUT he is not an Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), Occupational Therapist (OT), Audiologist, or autism specialist and he missed red-flags for problems that needed immediate attention. At the very least, he should have referred us to a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP).
Sometime ago I posted Captain of Your Ship? Fran gave me some very startling information way back when. Nothing much has changed, e.g., parents are still the captain of the ship.
Gosh, I'm way to chatty this morning.....
