Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional WMI and AD/HD: a cure?

I think it's true lol based on my own kid. His 1st grade teacher hinted ALL year about ADHD. I had him tested by a psysch and he never mentioned ADHD. My best friend was with my son for a week and she has ADHD as well as one of her kids and she said in no way is DS even on the spectrum. So DS 2nd grade teacher told me about his behaviors in class and then add, "But it's not inattention. WHen I take away the worksheet and give him a more challenging one, he hops right to it, gets it done quickly, in his head, and correct. Look at these problems. Read them. these are at least 2 step problems and he's doing it all in his head. Next year he really needs a teacher that can challenge him."

He would sit there, and honestly I wondered if he had ADHD, and dawdle over simple, stupid homework for HOURS. I asked him why and he said, "WHen it's too easy, I can't focus on it." Out of the mouths of babes.

I started coming to the conclusion that he wasn't being purposefully difficult, stubborn or trying to drive me insane...that that is how his brain works. Most people don't get it and assume it's something I can bribe, punish out of him. Nothing worked. He would CRY when I told him to not do his homework, that it was OK, but yet he still couldn't bring himself to do it.

I'm reading a book on Executive skills which posits that ADHD is deficiency in several executive skills. So the correlation to that is that executive skills can be improved upon or at least lessoned by using other skills to compensate. On some website, I read that some kids outgrow ADHD but current thinking is that medications actually prevent that. I would assume b/c they don't learn coping skills or how to use other executive skills to compensate. For those that do need the meds, perhaps their ADHD has a different origin.