It has been difficult to get him to show work for math (for instance he did the woodcock johnson achievement without writing anything down except for the fluency section where he had to). When he was "Star of the Week" the teacher had his talent be "Math Whiz" and DS was on a "stage" and the kids asked him multiplication questions. Teacher said he wasn't looking at them when he answered he was looking over them. So maybe he does this "staring off" when he's thinking. I don't know. When I went in and observed he was supposed to be writing about his favorite insect. The teacher had it on the smartboard basically in outline form like "My favorite insect is ____ because _____. This insect lives____" and the kids were supposed to copy it. The other kids in his group wrote like 10 sentences and he wrote maybe 1-2. I asked him why he didn't do the work and he said it's because there are thousands of species of insects and it's impossible to have a favorite one. So I think that's why he looked irritated. I told the teacher that I don't know if it's a focus issue or if he just didn't want to do the assignment and she said he's always like that and work just piles up. I talked to the doc and she agreed to do a trial of meds, which we did for just a few days and teacher said he sped up a lot and was doing work the same speed as the rest of the kids. The teacher also said that when he takes the math/reading computerized achievement tests he looks very focused and is able to sit there for like an hour at a time and does fine....so I don't really understand why he's focused with some things but not others, or why the meds would appear to have a dramatic effect if it's not really ADHD. I didn't notice a difference at home with the meds. I tried timing him in terms of math fluency, for instance, and he was about the same medicated vs. unmedicated but when I just had him write, he wrote a little more medicated (like 80 words in 10 minutes vs. 60). He's not medicated now but in the fall I'll have to take him back to the doc and talk to the new teacher and see what we can figure out.
This sounds similar to what my DS15 goes through. He would also sit a the fill in the blank question about insects and not have ANYTHING to say. He hates the term favorite and will often just leave this kind of thing blank. We are in the middle of a full evaluation of him right now and I don't really know what is going on yet. It is very frustrating and I'm not sure if there really is a diagnosis that fits.
