Hmm. I don't think either of my two have issues with automaticity. DS8 has an ADHD combined type diagnosis and DD10 has characteristics and behaviours but no formal diagnosis. DS8's biggest ADHD Achilles heel is inattention. He's also distractable, impulsive and hyper, but no significant automaticity issues.
Thanks for weighing in! Yeah - this is what gives me pause too ...DS' challenges do not seem to be attention, distractibility, impulsivity, etc... It's definitely with working memory (although it could be argued one doesn't remember based on one not paying attention in the first place as opposed to something being wrong with his memory). However, the fact that DS can do the digit span test forward really well but not backwards really well - sort-of adds more fuel to my not seeing the memory issues as being related to attention... He scored quite high on digit forward, abysmal on digist reversed. If this were due to attention, it would occur on both - no? Plus, I (as well as others) simply do not see big issues with attention, per se. There are times when he is in creative mode and he needs to get a story out, he is spacey. But I have noticed he is getting better and better on that. Like he sets aside time to create his story and "puits it away" in his head until then. Anyway, the big problems are not that 'DS has trouble staying on task.' Those aren't the notes/emails coming home. The notes home are "DS has three jobs to do in the morning and he can't remember to do them, without reminder." And this is true - I have SEEN this myself and it is very annoying. He used to have somewhat more difficulty "staying on task" before his vision was treated and his writing accomodated.... Now the school and I (as well as he, which makes a huge difference) know the signs of when his eyes are bothering him (his eyes water, hurt, turn red - happening so much less and less now with the VT) and can give him a break, also same with writing - when he gets fatigued (and we now know the signs) he gets a scribe and has no trouble continuing on task. The teacher has said herself - "If he could just remember the things he is suppose to do automatically throughout the day and keep his things organized, we'd be golden!" This is when the lightbulb went off in my head because I got that email the same day Polarbear mentioned on here the fact that automaticity of forming letters never seems to come to a dysgraphic and the day before I believe it was I got the word form the school psych that she sees 'dysgraphia' in DS's testing.
