Same Stuff, Different Way
Attention Deficit Disorder can be so unpredictable. Our symptoms are affected by so many different things that it can be hard to know at times what might help.
One of the places this shows up is in learning. Your child may understand a concept pretty well on Monday and yet not be able to grasp the same thing on Tuesday. Much of what gets learned seems to come and go at will; there is no building a foundation of what has been learned and adding to it.
Think of it this way: let’s say you’re building a wall out of bricks - the bricks in this case representing learning. Someone without ADHD starts with the foundation wall and continues building upward.
For someone with ADHD, you start with a foundation of bricks, but you may come back to work tomorrow to find that some or all of the bricks have been removed. You work on your wall all day and make some progress, but you still don’t complete as much as you did the previous day. And yet, you may come back the following day to find the wall as you left it on the first day.
The best way to handle this is to keep repeating the information, over and over, in different ways. You could do some math problems, for instance, that teach addition. Maybe later you could play a game with your child and let them keep score. You could let them help you cook, adding ingredients. You could get some M&M’s, or cookies, or blocks and demonstrate addition with those.
You can do the same sorts of things with older kids - using websites, real life experiences that they can relate to, movies, whatever. Even switching up the order they study the chapter in might help.
Of course, all of this means more work and more time spent. Kids with ADHD often spend far more time on their homework than kids without it. There’s not a lot you can do about that. It’s just the way it is.
One suggestion - you might want to keep a log on methods you try and their success rate. You’ll know if you’ve already tried something, and how it worked. And once you find a method that does, learn to use as well as you can.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Breaks and Chunking
I can’t even imagine what you must think today’s post is about 
In fact, it’s about two ideas that work well together to help your ADHD student study more effectively.
Breaks are a cardinal rule when it comes to Attention Deficit Disorder - and not just when it concerns studying.
Your brain, whether it’s ADHD or not, needs a break about every 15-20 minutes to absorb and store new information. Learning something new without taking a break almost guarantees that your brain will lose some information.
A break doesn’t have to be long; a minute or two is fine. Take a bathroom break, get a drink, stretch - whatever. Just give your brain a little rest.
Chunking is the idea of taking a chunk of information and studying it at once.
Let’s say your child needs to read a chapter in their history book for homework. Sitting down and reading start to finish will accomplish very little and allow your child to retain next to nothing.
Instead, think of each chapter section as one chunk. Take 15 minutes to read just that section and understand it. Look at the pictures, the words that are in bold or otherwise highlighted. Try to get as much meaning as possible from that small chunk of information, then take a break.
The break will allow your brain to take what you’ve just put in and file it correctly so that you can retrieve it later.
These are two simple concepts that, when put into regular practice, can make a big difference in your child’s grades and overall learning.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Spatial Learners
I’m not sure “spatial learners” is an actual term, but the idea behind it is. What I mean by a spatial learner is someone who needs concrete, hands on tools to manipulate and learn.
Kinesthetic learners are often described as hands on learners, but more precisely, they need the movement that comes with hands on types of experiences.
Spatial learners need to see things in concrete form in front of them. Now that doesn’t mean that if you’re learning about farming that you have to drive a John Deere through the classroom, but it does explain the value of field trips.
Spatial learning concepts can be used for learning about things that are more of an idea than an actual thing. Using M&M’s to teach basic math skills or the concept of grouping is an example.
You can take the idea even further - after all, six M&M’s is still a pretty concrete example of the number 6.
Let’s say you want to teach a basic spelling concept, like how q is always followed by u. And let’s use those M&M’s again. Let’s say all the red M&M’s are the letter q, and all the yellow ones are the letter u. The rest of the M&M’s are other letters in the alphabet.
You can show your child how the red ones have one very best friend - the yellow ones. But the yellow ones are more friendly, social and outgoing. They have lots of friends. So if you see a red M&M, you will always see a yellow one with it. But if you see a yellow one, it might have a red one with it, or maybe a green one or brown one. Get it?
Spatial learners basically need something concrete in their hands to go with the ideas they are trying to grasp. You might want to go easy on the M&M’s though. Lego’s might be a better idea.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
