Hello,
I've posted before about my DS10 who has a spiky WISC IV profile (VCI142,PRI113,WMI109,PSI100) who was deemed NVLD by the tester, and who definitely has some attention issues and a strong dislike of school.
Well, I had convinced myself to talk to his pediatrician at his upcoming annual appointment about his attention issues at school (skipping parts of questions, not showing work when asked, etc) and home (getting "lost" during daily life activities) and whether she thought ADHD medication could help. He also has mood issues (pessimistic, often seems lethargic) and I wondered if ADHD medication would help this as well.
So I tried an experiment. I told him he could have an extra hour of computer time for every A-grade he brought home on a test (he's mostly getting Bs due to "careless" type errors and insists that grades are not important and that he doesn't care about his marks at all). He has brought home 4 tests since then, all A's, no forgotton questions, all work shown when asked for.
Would the added "computer motivation" be enough for a child with an attention problem to pull himself together for a test? Is not having internal motivation part of ADHD? I had been thinking that his "not caring" attitude was a way of covering up feeling inadequate because he wasn't able to show his understanding on tests. But maybe I'm off base. . .
He is at a regular school this year (switched from Montessori) and I know he finds much of the work boring, but *really* does not want to be given any extra challenge. I suggested that maybe for English class (he goes to school in French and in English they are learning the names of animals, whereas he can read novels in English) I could ask that he have different work, since he had a note come home that he was "disruptive" in this class. This sounded like a major punishment to him (no, please Mom, I promise not to disrupt the class, please don't talk to my teacher about giving me different work . . . )
Any advice welcome.
