Learning blocks while on a medication?

Z

zba189

Guest
difficult child had been trialing Concerta this last week and Monday and Tuesday. Can a medication like this cause a learning block of some sort?

The reason I ask is because when husband and I visited him on Tuesday, his Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) said that school was going well but that his teacher was concerned about math. He had mentioned that it was like T had never seen math equations before. This surprised us because he had been able to do math problems previously (he's was no where near advanced but on grade level). We visited with difficult child alone and we tested him a bit- what's 6 plus 1. He didn't know. We worded it different, "you're six years old and on your birthday you'll have had added another year how old are you going to be?" We took five stones and added three more- no idea. He seemed confused and was upset that he couldn't give the answers. He was not in the room when the Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) mentioned his troubles in school with math. T at times will pretend he doesn't know an answer but it didn't seem to us that was the case here. husband and I figured, well maybe he really does struggle in math and we just didn't realize it.

I went and visited T yesterday and is now off the Concerta. I asked him how school was and he mentioned, "I worked on math today". He said his teacher asked him so many easy questions and that he got them all right both verbally and on his worksheets. I asked him what the questions were like and he said, "1 plus 5". I said what is the answer and he said with even a pause- 6. So I gathered some stones again and asked him some different questions with them and he easily answered all of them without any trouble.

Is it possible the medication has something to do with his block on Tuesday or should I venture a guess that he was playing husband and I?
 

Jena

New Member
it's soo hard to say, different medications react sooo differently with different kids. Often our children are very good at "playing us" as well as you said in hindsight :)

yet now off of it id' say you will be able to see if that was the cause or not. i've found with our medication experience my difficult child can have mental blocks also with-diff. medications, or a huge dulling effect, or simply lethargic whereas computing any type of "problem" becomes too much to grasp.

good luck finding out........ gotta love the medication game NOT!! :)
 

Marguerite

Active Member
easy child 2/difficult child 2 had this problem before she started medications, and after she started taking stimulants she still had to re-learn work she had previously done. If she had not had a chance to re-learn before we asked those questions, we would have had the same reaction.

easy child 2/difficult child 2 also used to be able to do the work. The problem was, over time her ability to remember work she had previously known, went out the window.
We were coaching her to pass a selective school exam (a school placement for gifted & talented kids). One week we would cover a certain topic; she could do it well after we showed her how to do it. A few days later she seemed a bit rusty but would quickly pick it up again. If we waited a week before getting back to it, she would remember having studied it but not remember how to do it. If we waited two weeks, she would deny ever having seen that topic before.

We were told that this problem was directly related to the inattention-type ADD - the work was not sinking in properly into her head when she first studied it.

Whether this is what is going on with your son - I can't say. But I thought this might help.

difficult child 3 is currently having increased problems holding information in his head, we increased his medications and he still has problems. So I'm planning on calling the specialist and asking for some help with this. Time to feed back and ask some questions. Maybe for you too?

Let me know how you get on. Whatever it is, your info could help others.

Marg
 
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