“Palm Pilots” and ADHD
Our family doctor is a Palm Pilot user. A Palm Pilot is a handheld electronic device that stores tons of information for you.
My youngest daughter had a habit of writing things to remember on her hand. When he saw it, our doctor said it was her own version of a Palm Pilot.
I used to work for a man who clipped small notes, phone messages, etc to his tie clip. He looked a little odd, but it worked for him.
When I had my first baby, the anesthesiologist wrote down my information on the leg of his scrubs.
All of these are unusual ways to keep track of what you need to remember, but if they work, who’s to argue?
Give it some thought - maybe you can come up with an easy creative idea to help your ADHD child remember.
Oh, and if you choose writing on your hand - use the top side. The palm gets sweaty and you’ll never be able to read it:-)
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The Elusive Side of ADD
I think that learning is one of the most important things you can do, and I don’t think it should stop with graduation. Life long learning will keep your brain active and make you a more interesting senior citizen.
When it comes to learning, people with Attention Deficit Disorder may struggle with the process. There are a lot of reasons for that:
- Being easily distracted and unable to focus means the information may not get through to begin with
People with ADD tend to be poor auditory learners, which is the way most teachers teach
Many people with ADD have poor executive functioning, which controls how information is processed and stored
ADD has an elusive side that can put you two steps behind where you were yesterday
That last point probably didn’t make much sense. Here’s what I mean: a person who doesn’t have ADHD can learn something on Monday and recall it on Tuesday (or any other day of the week).
A person with Attention Deficit Disorder can learn something on Monday, not remember it at all on Tuesday, and yet have a basic grasp of it later in the week. This is tied into the executive functioning process.
A person without ADHD learns about saltwater sea life and stores in it a “file cabinet” in their brain under science or sea life. That way, it’s easy to find when you need it.
A person with ADD, however, learns about saltwater sea life and one (or both) of two things might happen.
Saltwater sea life reminds them of their trip to Florida when they were 12 and their grandpa took them deep sea fishing. Maybe they even caught some of the sea life they’re learning about. But in this case, the information might get stored under vacations, childhood memories, or grandpa. Not so easy to find when you’re looking for information about saltwater sea life.
The other thing that could happen is that the executive functioning messes up the connections. It could take longer than usual to store the information in long term storage, or it may file it in a completely random spot, like math. Now you have a problem retrieving what you’ve learned on a reliable basis.
If you add in the pressures of taking a test and trying to retrieve this information, it becomes easier to see why thngs they knew the night before have suddenly disappeared.
If this elusive side of ADD affects your child, it probably always will to some extent. Repetition is the best way to deal with it; giving the brain more and more chances to store the information properly.
You might also teach them to be alert to connections they make in their mind when they are learning something. There’s nothing wrong with storing saltwater sea life under grandpa as long as you know that’s where it is.
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