Comments on: ADHD, ADD and Dyslexia

By: abdalla

abdalla — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 15:33:23 +0000

See my father is about to retire and i think i would be no body and i have a feeling i would not have a good life when i grow more and more oldder i wouldnt get better live any way life sucks so badly and when i was young i had an operation in the skull over the UK southren general hospital in Glasgow it’s all because of my sibling parents my life is full of deformities and weird stuff…

By: Kath

Kath — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:03:26 +0000

Hi there, I’m not actually sure where to start here…. my 6 year boy is struggling considerably at school. His teachers say he’s beautiful and well behaved, but has unpredictable attention span. I have a background of ADHD, treated as a child by diet, so we’ve tried all the same things like no colours and flavours, MSG, refined sugars etc, and he’s a great sleeper! We’ve been to various specialists, including the paed – who said he’s obviously not ADHD or autistic…. SO, being at a loss, I thought I’d consult the internet and stumble only your site. Oh my goodness! I know they are just guides, but the screening test for dyslexia fits exactly…. and your blub regarding the link between ADD and dyslexia… another oh my goodness! We are at a loss, but if not for anything else, you have given me a hope that this could be an answer! So, thanks for putting your own experiences our there and using it for the good of others!! Thank you!

By: Kel

Kel — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 06:52:17 +0000

Interesting what this says about being diagnosed in Australia, because I found it very difficult. Before anyone would even consider prescribing me ritalin I was assessed by the GP, referred to a Psychologist for 6 hours of testing, then had to find a Psychiatrist who was willing to deal with someone with ADHD, as a lot of them weren’t, my referral got passed around until someone who was willing to take those cases was found. Only the Psychiatrist can write me a prescription, unless he writes a letter to my GP giving her permission to do so, but I still have to check in with him at regular intervals to have my progress monitored. I understand that the entire process is needed to be thorough to prevent misdiagnoses, but man it costs me a fortune!

My dyslexia was classed as mild, messy writing, having the wrong letters come out when writing, terrible spelling but no problems with reading whatsoever.

Being able to take medication turned me from the worst student in my class into the best. I did a lot of work myself using different coping methods, but that was the final thing needed for it to all come together.

By: term paper

term paper — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 03:28:04 +0000

We probably would come along your professional topic while the free essays or just tv essay paper completing. Hence, thank you very much for work.

By: Gina Langworthy

Gina Langworthy — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:52:19 +0000

Dawn,
I wonder if you would be able to test my daughter for Dyslexia? I am not sure where you are based at the moment and want someone who will be positive about her to test her. She is 12 now and a creative kid who lacks self esteem and confidence in the classroom. She gets ç ‘s in Maths and Language but must work harder than other kids who (in my opinion) are no more intelligent than her. She does well in art and music but does not fulfill her potential there either due to confidence lost in other learning areas. Her visual-spatial skills are very strong (ie can direct the way to a place only visited once before. She is treated as a ‘plodder’ at school and there is so much more to her than this (she knows it too). She has suffered some depression and social anxiety and feels that ‘no-one thinks she can do anything’.
Please let me know if you can help.
thank you,
Gina Langworthy

By: freelance writing

freelance writing — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:27:33 +0000

The writing jobs service would not figure out all life problems, but, this is possible to have useful information just about this topic.

By: judy

judy — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:44:27 +0000

My son has undergone the worst year at a reputable private school. In the beginning of the year, it was very apparent that the teacher had a problem with who our family are, my husband is Chinese and I am English. My son is the most gorgeous, sensitive, loving child. It crushes me everyday knowing he is in the presence and control of the teacher. I have on numerous accessions witnessed the teacher ignoring my son. She has caused so much havoc in my family this year. Previous to this school, my son was at a preschool where he achieved. For four years, his reports stated how popular he was, intelligent, a confident leader. So I felt so confident when he started grade R at the popular boys only school.
It was a nightmare from day one. My son, an only child, become like a insecure child I didn’t recognise. It was devastating. I was phoned by the teacher on the first day asking if my child does not know how to draw free hand. I was like what? She continued to say how crèches only teach the children how to colour in the same picture, but at this school the new programme was for children to draw on their own.
Give my son a break. He has been at a reputable pre-primary school (co-ed) where he was confident, nurtured and loved.
The teacher at the new school was not nurturing, ignored him and always highlighted what he didn’t know. Friends were very important to my son, so I could just imagine how he felt been
Insulted and highlighted in front of his friends for what he didn’t know. To cut a long year short, after seeing an education therapists, speech therapists, a need that arose due to my son’s new found anxiety in class. The speech therapist explained that due to his desperate attempt in getting the teachers approval he didn’t learn a lot in the “war zone” but was anxious to be accepted by her, which was not going to happen. Just to let you know, I didn’t just accept this, I took the case to the headmaster who informed me that they do not remove children from the class they are initially appointed in.
So I am now sitting in a situation where my anxious child is been accepted into a remedial school and a streamline school for next year. I don’t trust that school now to handle any situation that may arise as there was no support before. So my anxious child has to now change schools, which I have not informed him as yet.
If he goes to the remedial school, which is temporary, how will he cope the following year when he joins the streamline school or should I let him join the streamline co-ed school for grade 1 instead.
I am dreading telling him he has to change schools already as he loves his friends and is so excited to join grade 1 there already. I cannot leave him in a school that does not support the children but rather protect the teacher. I know this sounds like a case of, it’s easier to blame the teacher, but I am not a parent to just take a child out of a school and I am very aware of the negative consequences. I need my son to be happy. Do I place my son in a remedial school due to the anxiety he has due to a teacher who would just not acknowledge him. He has definitely suffered, in his language skills, which I have placed him in extra lesson for with a therapist.
I have had comments from friends that this will only worsen the situation as he will feel inadequate and even more so under the spotlight. My son is a perfectionist and his intuition is scary. That is why I think he is very aware of how the teacher fells about him. He just dreaded going to school doing things like Letterland as he just felt he would fail, and would comment “ I cant do it” My husband doesn’t want to hear any of it and states that his son will not enter remedial school because of what “she” has done to him. I just want to do what is right for my son.
Please advise as I have to make a decision this week.
I am so scared of making the wrong choice for my son, which can affect him forever.

Kind Regards

By: shana dean

shana dean — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:48:19 +0000

I have just read through the comments on this page, some really interesting stuff, will look forward to reading your book Dawn. I am of mixed opinion on your comments on ADHD, I was diagnosed with adhd (inattentive )(and it definetly exists let me tell you from experience) in early adulthood mid last year and the medication has changed my life, I was also diagnosed with a “non verbal learning disorder” dyslexia I believe. I am shortly to be screened for IRLEN syndrome. I have done counselling, braingym, put myself and my children on Failsafe diet by Sue Dengate which all helped immensly also but not enough for myself to get off medication (i tried and failed once). All I know is I felt like I was in the wrong skin before I began medication, needed a 3 hr nap every afternoon, snapped at everyone, could not turn off my thoughts, oversensitive to everything, overthought everything, took on too much and burnt out leading to a few days in bed fairly regularily. Binged ate, had panic attacks, suicide thoughts etc…it was horrible and the medication solved about 80% of that for me with the rest pretty well being fixed through the other therapies I mentioned. so its hard to see so many people damning the medication being offered. All things in balance is a better approach I think. I hope in the future an alternative route come up that is less harsh especially as so many of the people taking the medication are children, that would be wonderful. I am keen to learn more about dyslexia and how I can learn about myself further and help myself get even greater results. My experience is that there is no one answer to such issues as there are so many individuals in the world each with their own make up. It would be great if the people focused on these issues looked more towards providing a full spectrum of information and choices and less towards pro or neg medication. Cheers

By: sue

sue — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:01:31 +0000

Our 8yr old son in year 4 was diagnosed with “attetion deficit low active” although he outsmarts the teachers and quitely sits and does no school all day, but when asked he says he did allot of work that day. He works hard and does well with a 1 on 1 learning, I guess that because we have been doing speech, occupational therapy, literacy, brain gym etc over the years as he had suffered several delays due to many years of ear infections since he was a baby and glue ear at the age of 4. by 41/2 yrs he was begining to hear sounds clearly back then a peadiatrics dr in sydney recommended we use adhd drugs to help him improve PS he never has been hyperactive in his life. He has always struggled inschool and tried to do as little as possible thus falling behind so we repeated his school year at 6yrs of age to help him catch up but this impacted his Self-esteem but he took it in his stride and became positive about it. at year 1 he hated school and his teacher shouted allot at the students by end of term 3 we moved to perth and put him in yr 2 with a wonderful structured and very organised and focussed teacher, this helped our son allot he loved school and going to school. by yr 3 his teacher found that he was very slow at getting things done and not understanding class work, so she devised a program for him to help him with areas that were difficult for him. in thata year he was doing literacy clases, speech therapy, sport and braingym after school each week. by the end of that year we also found out he needed glasses after doing a visiong processing test.
So in year 4 he started wearing glassesand this has helped only slightly as he states he sees words moving and coming at him still, so this year we started visual processing therapy. he still sees the words moving but now feel comfortable wearing 3d glasses over his normal glasses, but there has not been any improvement with his classwork we received allot of pressure from the school teacher and psychologist to get him on ritalin. the peadiatrics dr perscribed ritalin to our son and did not check his blood pressure and left us to believe this was the only hope we have. so we started ritalin mid last term and the teacher praised it as he was doing his work on his own and completing set tasks. But I am concerned as I still do not feel comfortable that I received pressure from his teacher who has no medical experience and has only been teaching for 4 yrs and has seen a child from the previous year change over night just because they were taking perscription drugs that it would be good for us too. Also the school psychologist did not perform any tests on our son nor indicate any other alternatives and as he is not dissable they were not able to get in an aid to do 1 on 1 and the teacher has 31 students in the class and could not give our son the attention. (so drugs was our only options as it worked for another child whom we know nothing about)

when we went back in term 2 I did more investigations stopped ritalin and increased our sons fish oil and vitamin intake, but the teacher pulled me aside and asked me if our son has stopped ritalin as his performance has stopped. so in last 2 weeks we are back on ritalin and there has not been a great improvement in his work.. PLease Help Us as I do not want DRUGS to be the only answer to getting our son to focus and concentrate on his school work, he is too young and not enough diagnosis has been conducted by the school and pediatrics dr to warn us about the risks in the future. PLease help or if you can direct us in the right direction please.

By: Geraldine Mullins

Geraldine Mullins — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:16:31 +0000

This comment is unsolicited by Dawn.My grandson now nearly 10 yo was tutored by Dawn for at least 2 years. Dawn is highly competent and skilled in getting the best from children who struggle with literacy and numeracy. She provides amazing levels of dedication to teaching, gently giving Jack re-assurance so he could focus and learn. He was relaxed, confident and had lots of fun while improving his self image at a time when he could have become negative and felt he was dumb.
Sadly Jack’s parents moved to an Eastern District suburb and did not continue with dyslexia tutoring. This is a very tragic outcome because he has had an entire year without dyslexia tutoring, he has been taken out of his school classes,wrongly assessed as ADHD and medicated with Concerta, a long-acting Ritalin drug. This diagnosis and chemical treatment by WA paediatricians cannot be clinically substantiated but is favoured by a parent or teacher who does not want to be harrassed by a child who is inattentive simply because he needs to be educated in a specific learning model.