Organization, working memory, and self-monitoring are other EF skills, also frequently affected in ADHD.
So is this a different kind of working memory than what is measured on the WISC and if so, is there a way to test for it?
The WM tasks on the WISC are done orally, so it's testing auditory processing->memory->production/manipulation. Visual WM can potentially be different, and some SLPs can test for it. I've monitored it at home with the game Simon with the sound off ("Crazy Copy" free iPad app).
Both my kids have also struggled with copying, which is what had me probing for visual vs auditory WM, but to no avail. The issue seems to be one of an overwhelmed memory nevertheless, compounded by the fact that neither kid sees parts of words, but only the whole. So to copy the spelling, they would have to both be aware that their spelling was different and also to copy it letter-by-letter.
On alphabet fluency, DS had a 143 second lower case alphabet writing speed as a baseline this last summer. It was very much a function of not knowing the alphabet from any arbitrary starting point. He would write it slowly, lose track of the song in his head, and then start over singing it from 'a' to progress. We've been doing AAS (thanks aeh!!), and one of the things that it works on is exactly that - being able to pick up the alphabet from any arbitrary starting point. I thought it silly initially, but DS has learned it, and we're finding all sorts of things now come more easily, including writing the alphabet in 30 seconds. His WM also tested in the high 120s (don't recall exactly the #).
aeh: You said: "People with EF issues, such as in ADHD, usually do better with meaningful than with rote tasks, which have insufficient intrinsic interest to keep them focused and organized." This is the exact opposite of what I'm being told by the school - DS can't compose because of his attention issues (a diagnosis I do not have clarity on, BTW) as composition uses so much of the brain whereas wrote skills do not. Can you elaborate and clarify? DS certainly looks more like "generating letters>copying letters>copying words>copying sentences>generating words>generating sentences>generating paragraphs+" I've moved "generating letters" to the front of your sequence. Generating words is tough to determine as intermingled with resistance to do anything due to poor spelling.
