Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment wisc iv and wisc 5

Here's an N of 1 story, for what it's worth. Our experience with DD has been that prior to remediation, it was very difficult to separate cause and effect. Is poor attention impairing her reading? Or is inability to read causing her to tune out? We really couldn't tell, but both DD herself as well as teachers were identifying huge problems with focus and maintaining concentration.

Assessment determined that both dyslexia and ADHD-inattentive (and visual processing) were at play. We decided to start reading remediation first, and then determine if attention was seriously interfering with her ability to access the remediation. If so, we would consider medication for the ADHD, otherwise, we were continuing to support through scaffolding etc. Reading remediation was a tough slog, but we could almost immediately see that it was making a big difference, and we could easily see continual progress, so we left the drugs parked.

Now, with her reading program completed, it's very interesting to discover that her teachers no longer see ANY serious attention issues in class. DD is still clearly ADHD-inattentive in real life. However now that she can read and write, I can only guess that these activities have moved into the category of intrinsically-motivating, and so don't trigger the attention problems the way they used to.

None of this is to say remediate dyslexia and your attention problems will disappear - not at all! More to echo the comments above, which is to look closely at the remediation you doing, and assess whether attention issues are in fact interfering with your child's ability to benefit from the remediation. If attention is getting in the way of your child being able to use the supports provided, then it needs to be addressed as a prerequisite. I couldn't agree more with aeh's advice to start with the point of greatest pain - but sometimes it takes a little experimenting to figure out what that is.