Attention Deficit Disorder :

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) affects 3-5% of school children in
British Columbia and Canada. It is often described as a neurological
disorder that is characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. It commonly affects more boys than girls.
Here are some typical symptoms of ADD released by the British Columbia Ministry of Education.

· Fails to give close attention to detail
· Makes careless mistakes
· Work appears as messy
· Doesn't follow instructions
· Fails to finish things
· Has difficulty moving onto a new activity
· Has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
· Avoids sustained mental effort
· Loses things
· Easily distracted
· Forgetful
· Fidgets or squirms
· Leaves seat in classroom
· Runs and climbs when inappropriate
· Has difficulty playing quietly
· Talks excessively
· Has difficulty awaiting turn
· Interrupts others conversations Back to top

Beware that teachers are becoming increasingly quick to apply such labels
to pupils. Sometimes children who are in fact gifted have been given the
ADD label. Other conditions that may give rise to symptoms similar to and including those of ADD include:

· Hyperthyroid
· Diabetes
· Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
· Bipolar disorder
· Lack of sleep
· Family disruptions
· Anxiety
· Has trouble seeing
· Has trouble hearing
· Intellectual disability
· Abuse or neglect Back to top

Bad Diet and food allergies can also have a huge effect on a child's behavior. Two Canadian scientists have discovered that too much saturated fat may affect the brain as much as it does the heart and the arteries. They note impaired memory and concentration in rats on a high fat diet when performing tasks compared to rats on a low fat diet. (NZ Herald 9/3/01) Too much sugar can also give rise to hyperactive type behavior such as fidgeting and squirming and the inability to sit still for long periods of time.
Allergies can also give rise to ADD type symptoms. Common food allergies include wheat, eggs, peanuts, and dairy products.

If you suspect your child has ADD it is important to have a professional diagnosis. ADD is a label and this label may be made to fit individual's whose symptoms are the result of quite different causes. Bear in mind that each different manifestation of ADD depending upon its causative factor will need a different form of treatment. For example, one child diagnosed with having ADD (i.e. displaying symptoms typical of other children to whom we give the label ADD) may have genuine problems with the synapses in the brain, another may be suffering anxiety (that could be the result of a number of different factors), another may be suffering from depression, another may have gaps in his learning, another may have difficulty regulating input from the senses and another may be suffering an allergy to wheat or some other food making them restless and irritable. Back to top

Here are some tips to help teach a child who has been given the label ADD.

Create a structure for your lessons
Give an overview of what you are about to do before each lesson.
Keep sessions brief and interesting.
Praise more frequently.
Instructions may need to be given in writing as well as spoken.
Set short-term goals together.
Use systems such as ReadingMaster that utilize accelerated learning
formats. E.g. flashcards, accelerated learning music, etc for maximum
retention.
But most importantly try to get to the root cause of the behavior. If your child is given the label ADD, that is just the beginning not the end. If you can locate the cause of the behavior, there is a large chance your child will show dramatic improvement. Please know that approximately 50% of children with ADD improve markedly as they enter adulthood. Back to top

Dyslexia
"Dys" means bad or difficult and "lexia" means word. Dyslexia is a reading disorder characterized by difficulty breaking down words into their minimal sound units or phonograms. There are 44 sounds in English which are represented by 70 phonograms. The long sound "ay" can be represented by the phonograms "ay", "ai", "a", "ei", "ea" and "eigh". The English language is considered a complex language. To know it well, it is important to be able to recognize each of the minimal sound units and to be able to associate each with it's sound or sounds. Dyslexics have difficulty recognizing these sound units and the result is that like-sounding words often get confused.
The cause of dyslexia is not really known. Some studies have noted that brain patterns of dyslexics are different, pointing to a physical cause. Autopsies of poor reader's brains have revealed some differences in the language area than brains of good readers. Dyslexia can also run in families. This, however, does not necessarily point to a genetic link as methods of learning and commitment to learning generally run in families too. It has been found that early training in phonograms helps dyslexics. One school of thought is that dyslexia is more a learned disorder than a learning disorder. If given correct phonetic training in the early years when learning to read, the number of cases of dyslexia decreases. This learning can also take place later on as revealed by a classroom study published in USA educational publication Education Week with 76 poor readers who were given 30 minutes a day of extra tutoring breaking down words where 70% were reading average by the end of the first semester and 85% by the end of the second semester. Back to top

Another case that showed improvement in dyslexia after having specific phonics training was sent in to ourselves. It comes from Mr T. Spokes in Northern Territory, Australia. His whole letter is up on the web site under "testimonials" but to paraphrase, Mr Spokes was diagnosed as "slow" in Grade three at school and was put in "remedial" or "special" classes. Mr Spokes hated reading "as the words made no sense in the way they were constructed." Upon entering university, Mr Spokes was diagnosed as being slightly dyslexic. "Phonics was the psychologists first line" and in the space of two to three months he slowly improved. After leaving school at 15 on the advice of his teachers as they felt he would never get a job, Mr Spokes now holds 2 biology diplomas, 3 science degrees, and a Master Degree in Nursing. "I am now making application for entry into Medicine, he writes."
Besides training in phonics, other things that can be done for dyslexics in schools include giving more time to complete tests because of the longer reading time required to read the test papers, avoiding multiple choice tests which provide no contextual clues. Back to top

It is estimated that dyslexia affects between 5-20% of school age children in America, depending on whether you include all the children who can't read because they haven't been taught phonetics, or not.

Footnote: For more on dyslexia see Dr. Eric H. Chudler

Autism Back to top

Autism is a very complex disorder. It is characterized by the inability to reach out to other people. This may manifest itself in many different ways - the avoidance of eye contact, retreat into a different world, unusual ritualistic behavior such as clapping or head banging, unusual language patterns and sometimes obsessions with inappropriate or unexpected things. Some autistic children may possess some exceptional ability in one or more areas, in the same way that a blind person might develop more acute hearing to make up for the short falls of not being able to see. There is much ongoing research into the cause or causes of autism. Researchers have identified that autistic people generally have slightly bigger heads and brains and believe the neurons in certain areas of the brain are wired differently. Other researchers have discovered a link between autistic children and food allergies, as with ADD. Milk, wheat, peanut, egg and soy allergies account for 90% of food allergies in children. Because food allergy is greatest in the first few years of life and can affect up to 6% of children below the age of three, it is always worth considering. Thalidomide and epilepsy drugs taken in the first trimester of pregnancy have also been linked with autism. One article also notes autistic-like behavior in many of the children from Eastern European orphanages and street children.

Working with autistic children brings about mixed results. "Applied behavioral therapy" is one-on-one teaching that breaks down learning into small, repetitive tasks. One ten year old Evan could make eye contact after three months of intense learning, 20-25 hours a day. There are other studies like these where autistic children have responded to teaching.

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Other uplifting and inspiring information comes out of the Option Institute in America. The Option Institute, founded in 1983, is based in Massachusetts. They run personal growth programs and seminars and have a publishing wing. Option Indigo Press has several books available outlining success stories treating autism. "A Miracle to Believe In" by Barry Kaufman (co-founder of The Option Institute) is the story of an autistic boy called Robertito and the journey he goes on with his parents to find a way into his world. Robertito exhibited the characteristic weak brain waves in the frontal lobes of his brain often seen in autistic children. It is thought that the neural connections are wired differently in certain areas in autistic children. The frontal lobes help in processing complex information such as understanding, memory and in Robertito's case where the left frontal lobe was affected, language. Robertito spent the first six years of his life without facial expressions, without any language skills and avoiding all eye contact with other human beings. By his seventh birthday he could make eye contact and speak in sentences. He had been turned into a responsive and loving human being. This was as a result of an empathetic, accepting approach being taken to his condition in the hope of bringing out the desire in Robertito to come out of his world. Back to top

Another book listed on the above mentioned site, Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues, is about Barry and Samahria Kaufman's own child Raun who was diagnosed with autism. This is a story outlining Raun's journey from a totally disconnected toddler who would spend his time spinning in circles and flapping his fingers with an IQ of under 30 to an outgoing, enthusiastic young boy with an IQ at near genius and a university degree. It is this work that the Kaufmans did with their son that formed the basis of their Option Institute.

Autism, like ADD and dyslexia, is not fully understood. The cause or causes are generally not clear nor consequently the treatment required. Although the medical profession tends to dismiss autistic children as irreparably brain damaged and unrecoverable there are cases out there of autistic children being cured. This is, therefore, a complex issue that needs an open mind. It looks like if the faulty wiring of neural connections in certain areas of the brain can be rewired through early and appropriate intervention, then many children with this condition, like many children with ADD and dyslexia, can be turned around. Back to top