Irena, I didn't have a chance to see your email to the school last night, but wanted to let you know it was great! Also glad to hear it was just routine, and that you were able to have the conference.

Re the concerns about attention - were the teachers specific in giving you details about when your ds has a tough time staying on task or was it expressed as a general concern? I would want specifics - so you can see if there are any consistent patterns - is it happening when the teacher is talking to the class and students are supposed to listen, is it happening when he's given a writing assignment, is it happening in circle when a story is read, etc. I would also want to know specific details about what behaviors are being interpreted as lack of attention. Is he fidgeting, looking around the room, getting up from his seat etc.

Next step - look through all the details and see if anything you're seeing is a pattern related to either a part of class where he is potentially bored or a task that is related to his disabilities. I would also try asking your ds what is going on during those times - he's still really young so his feedback might not make sense, but otoh, he might have some good insight for you.

After that - if you have concerns at all (or if you think you need to head off concerns on the part of the school re ADHD) I'd consider doing two things: The first thing I'd do is get a private ADHD eval through either your ped's office or whoever they recommend - this would be an eval that includes behavioral surveys completed by teachers and parents. JMO, but I'd want this so I had a good understanding of whether or not what the teachers were concerned about is really ADHD or behaviors that look like ADHD but are due to other situations such as lack of challenge or improperly accommodating for 2nd e etc. If your ds does *not* have ADHD, it's also good to have the medical non-diagnosis so that if it's raised as an issue at school you have a report stating that no, it's not an issue and not a reason for the distractibility in the classroom.

The second thing you can do is to request a Functional Behavior Analysis through the school - I'm wondering if they ever did this as part of his IEP eligibility process? Certainly if the staff is raising issues about distraction you can use this as a reason to request the FBA. I don't know that I'd do this first - jmo, I'd go for the private ADHD eval first simply because I'd want my ped's opinion (btdt).

I've been in a similar situation with two of my kids - my EG 2e ds and my non-2e MG dd. Two different situations, both suspected of having ADHD, ds does not, dd I thought didn't for a long time, but now that she's hit middle school I'm starting to wonder again. This may get a bit long, so feel free to ignore, but here's what we found in early elementary with distraction (for them) and how we handled it:

DS - his teachers first mistakenly thought he had ADHD in 2nd grade, before we knew about his 2e fine motor and writing/expressive language challenges. We were told he was not focusing in the classroom, staring off into space while the teacher talked to the class, not writing when he was supposed to, and not participating in group activities in class. All of that was actually happening, but it was all related to his handwriting and expressive language challenges. When we asked for specific examples of not participating in group activities in class, for example, the teacher gave us specific examples, and we asked our ds about them and what happened, and it always had something to do with the group having to contribute ideas by writing them down on paper and ds didn't know what to write - which was due to his 2nd e. What we did: changed teachers once we had his neuropsych 2e diagnosis - plus gave ds help with writing (in the classroom during writing time) and gave him access to keyboarding in place of handwriting. With his accommodations in place and structured help with writing assignments (getting his ideas out), the behaviors that were being interpreted as distractibility and ADHD symptoms went away. Over the years, with accommodations and appropriate remediation, it's become quite clear that ds doesn't have ADHD.

DD couldn't sit still in early elementary. She's a sensory-seeking child and she was extremely sensitive to background noise when she was young. She also had vision issues that we didn't know about at that time. She looked like she had hyperactive ADHD because she didn't sit still. When we talked to her about school she complained that she couldn't hear the teacher because of all the noise the other kids were making moving their chairs or tapping their pencils or walking around in the classroom etc. She went through an OT sensory eval and a listening therapy program for almost a full year, and that really helped her a lot with being able to tune out the background noise, and in turn she started being able to sit at her seat and focus on her work, both at home and at school. It was really, for her, a dramatic difference, and dramatic enough her teacher was very very impressed with the difference in just the first few months of her therapy. At home, we saw her sit down and enjoy working on workbooks, worksheets etc right away - for the first time ever in her life. At the same time, at home, if we were to give her a multi-step direction such as "pick up the book and take it to your room" she could not carry it out at all. Ever. She is a happy-go-lucky personality so what we would see looked like an easily distractible kid. She'd pick up the book, stop 10 steps away to notice something else, go to some different room and notice yet something else, drop the book before she'd gone on to the next distraction etc. Looked very ADHD. Turns out she was having severe double vision and after going through VT she had no trouble with those multi-step directions. So once again, we were fairly certain she didn't have ADHD. Another thing she used to do - she had quite a few medical issues as a young child, so she was seeing several different types of drs frequently - and whenever she was in a dr's office she would literally bounce off the walls, she'd be so incredibly hyper. Eventually she told us she "bounced" at dr's appointments because she was scared and worried and didn't want to get shots etc - so basically, she was nervous and it came out in hyperactive behavior that looked like ADHD.

Soooo.... lots of things with dd that looked like inability to focus, easily distractible, and hyperactive behavior, and none of them were due to ADHD. BUT - here's the thing - she's old enough now, in middle school, that she can clearly explain to us how she feels, and now, we're starting to wonder again (as well as she's starting to wonder) if she doesn't have ADHD - she tells us it's a lot of work to focus and she is nervous if she can't move her body - she tells us her body just wants to get up and move around. Soooo... it's all such a puzzle really!

The last thing I would consider - and another piece of the puzzle that I feel is important based on my own children's experience - is the classroom environment. What is the behavior of the other children in the classroom? And is it a noisy classroom where the kids get up and move around a lot, or is it a relatively quiet classroom where the kids are all working in sync and there aren't a lot of disruptions? Do the kids sit at individual desks or in groups at tables? My kids started out at a school that was very project-oriented, student-led learning etc - and the classrooms didn't have desks, they just had tables with groups of students sitting together. Each year there were usually 2-3 students in each class who had challenges that were significant enough they took quite a bit of the teacher's attention to control behavior. At the school they are in now, the classrooms are a bit more traditional in that they have more structure to the lessons. The students still don't sit at traditional desks and they still do a lot of group work - but the teachers seem to have a much better sense of how to engage the students as a group and how to deal with students who aren't staying on task without distrupting class for the students who are on task. I'm not sure how to explain it - but the classroom environment has made a huge difference to my kids' overall enjoyment of school, which has helped my dd in particular really get engaged and improve her school performance.

Last quick thoughts - I'll second the suggestion above for headphones and possibly an mp3 player if that's allowed. My ds uses noise-cancelling headphones at home when his sisters get too loud while he's doing his homework (I suppose we're beyond pathetic when it comes to having to provide ds with accommodations for his sister's behaviors at home lol!). Our early elementary classrooms also had fidgets at each table for any of the students who wanted to use them to fidget with. When my dd used to want to get up and mover around during class, having one of those air-filled gnarly-looking seat cushions helped her. I am guessing with your ds though it's not so much getting up and moving around as it is holding his attention and engaging him.

polarbear