I know this isn't the focus and don't want to derail, but I wonder if the inattention has more to do with slow processing speed than working memory--forgive me if I'm remembering wrong.
My 2e dysgraphic was good at forgetting lots of stuff--some things because he just didn't want to waste the energy thinking in that direction right now, thank you. He had trouble switching off of things and initiating things. It seemed to be related to getting himself in gear. If the classroom is fast moving, or if he has learned that as soon as he gets into it, he'll have to switch gears, I could see a lack of sustaining attention.
I'd say this was definitely true for our 2e ds - plus another thing that happened with our ds was his working memory score on the WISC actually improved between 2nd and 5th grade (considerably). His neuropsych said that's not all that uncommon, that working memory is the one piece of the IQ test that she sees improve sometimes as children mature, particularly as they approach middle-school age.
FWIW one of the things that our ds' teachers felt was a symptom of ADHD for our ds was an extreme challenge with organizational skills when he was in elementary school. Homework went missing all the time, even with tons of prompts and repetition of what-to-do-to-turn it in and a ton of oversight from teachers and parents. In hindsight, I am fairly certain a lot of the disappearing homework was tied to frustrations ds felt over his 2e challenges - he wasn't able to produce the quality of work he saw the other kids producing. He was frustrated. And he was definitely organizationally challenged on top of it - but he has worked through to the other side and is now a reasonably well-organized student who cares a lot about his work. I think there were three essential parts to how that happened - having someone (me) walk him through the steps repeatedly for a long time, having his 2e written expression challenges appropriately accommodated and remediated, and maturing.
See, this is exactly my suspicion of what really is going on. But I sort of have to wait and see - is this it and he will "get better"? or does he have the real deal and physically needs meds? I really think I do have to wait and see, you know?
You don't only have to wait and see - you can have an ADHD eval by a trusted dr. The thing I'd want to be sure of though is that whoever you go to for the eval also is open to the possibility of it being something other than ADHD. It was helpful for us to have a dr do the eval who also had children of his own who have LDs and who realized that an intellectually capable child could potentially be bored in the classroom. We found that in talking with teachers at school, there was a slant toward thinking all behaviors pointed to ADHD simply because they weren't used to looking for LDs in bright students.
polarbear
