Shane and I have been playing visual memory games. We’ve played concentration and matching games. He does pretty well.
We’ve also played “how many things can you remember?” I put random items into a box, and Shane looked at each one for a few seconds. Then he listed as many items as he could remember. He got 16 out of 26 – not bad!
And we played some online computer games that are supposed to enhance memory. We played one in particular that matches faces – which is especially good for Shane, who spent the first nine years of his life unable to tell the difference between people who had the same color and style of hair. (This was especially a problem when it came to the color “brown,” which is a very popular hair color. All people with short brown hair looked exactly the same to Shane.)
I downloaded a bunch of these suggestions from the internet, so that I would be able to offer him the best visual memory enhancers. We’ve tried all of them – except one.
We have not played “what moved?” because I am afraid of the results.
“What moved?” is a game in which two people sit in a room. They look around and study their environment. Then one person closes his eyes, and the other person moves something. With eyes open, the first person subsequently identifies what moved. Hence, the name of the game.
But Shane doesn’t see things. He doesn’t know that they are there. His room is often a disaster – but not just a random disaster. Everything is organized – and then there will be a pair of socks right smack in the middle of the floor.
The socks will sit there for nine days.
Or there will be a jacket in a ball on the floor. Shane will step on the jacket, walk around the jacket, throw things on the jacket. The jacket will never again move, until a parental unit prompts him to hang up the jacket.
I am the only parental unit who will say anything, by the way, because Shane’s father’s jacket is never hung up.
Or the CDs will come out of Shane’s CD player and go … onto the floor. No matter how many times I mention that CDs are quite breakable, and that stepping on a CD will result in a broken CD, Shane will not put his CDs in their cases.
It’s like he just doesn’t see it at all.
I realize that this may have nothing to do with visual memory. It may just be the way he is, or the way boys are, or the way people are – in general.
I do not want to face this fact. I want it to be something fixable.
What if we play “what moved?” and Shane can’t figure out what moved? Then what do we do? Do we play until he figures it out? Do we play it for days and days and days until we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Shane simply can’t observe the things in his environment?
Sigh.
I guess we will have to play it and see what happens.
When dropping off Dylan at school one morning, while it was still dark since the sun hadn’t yet popped over the horizon, a woman approached my car.
“I know this might sound creepy,” she said, “but did your son go to Graceland Preschool?”
Interestingly, Shane did go to Graceland Preschool!
“Not this son,” I said, pointing at Dylan, who was sitting next to me. “But my other son did.”
“Shane?” she said.
“Yes!”
“I was his teacher,” she said.
She was unfamiliar to me, except for her smile. Formerly a large redhead, she was now a 100-pound blond. And apparently, she now teaches at Dylan’s school. We chatted for a few minutes, her apologizing for approaching me after ten years, and me professing my undying love for her. Then she went inside.
Dylan asked, “Was she really Shane’s preschool teacher?”
I nodded. “She changed Shane’s life.”
Then I realized that I probably never told the teacher that she changed Shane’s life. And teachers should know that their work truly makes a difference. So when I got home, I emailed her the following story:
One day after school, you pulled me aside to talk to me. You said that Shane spent his entire playtime with his head in the dollhouse. It was a little, tiny dollhouse – so he just stuck his head inside, quietly. You talked to him and asked him to come out, but he wouldn’t. He was very sad that day, and that was how he handled the emotion. (Someone had told Shane to get off the slide, hence the terrific sadness.)
That was an eye-opening experience for me, as a parent. Shane is the younger brother of a VERY high maintenance child. Older brother has ADHD and other issues that Shane doesn’t have, so Shane got very little attention. In fact, Shane was pretty much raising himself. He was a very easy child.
But when I heard about the dollhouse, I realized that we needed to do something. We needed to look at ways to specifically boost Shane’s self-confidence, encourage him to speak up, and give him positive reinforcements when he was doing something right. Up until that day, we’d just let that good behavior go unnoticed.
As parents, then, we changed. We started paying closer attention to Shane, getting genuinely excited when he did things well, making a point of complimenting him. We created a poster with a huge picture of Shane. We put adjectives all around the picture – words like “funny” and “calm” and “smart.” It was a reminder that so much about him is good. And that poster is still hanging in his room, ten years later.
Shane is still an incredibly “easy child.” He’s in 7th grade now, and he is peaceful, laid-back and kind. Best of all, he feels good about himself. He knows he’s okay, just the way he is. He’s an out-of-the-box thinker and very bright, so he can be a little weird. But he’s okay with that, too.
And that – seriously – is because of you. Because you took the time to tell me what happened, to talk about Shane’s rough playtime, to show me that tiny dollhouse. You took the time to care about what Shane was feeling. Not every teacher does that – even in preschool – and we are eternally grateful to you for that.
I can’t believe I forgot to say all that to you this morning, but I am glad that I can tell you now. Thanks so much for saying hello this morning.
And then I decided the story is worth sharing with the whole world, too.
Written this past Saturday, and shoved under Dylan’s door, where it was subsequently read but otherwise ignored:
Dear Dylan,
Today is the conclusion of what was an incredibly good week for you. This week might have been the most successful I’ve seen in the past three years.
Your grades are – without any help from me – going from E’s to A’s in many classes. Your English grade jumped drastically after all your work on notecards. You have a B in there now! Your algebra grade went from an E to a C, and you still have to finish a test in there. You could have an A in that class! Your hard work is paying off. You have a HIGH B in Technology, and you could get an A in there, too! And your NSL grade is a VERY, VERY, VERY HIGH B – 87%! That’s an Honors class, so if you got an A in that… well, your Weighted GPA would jump a LOT.
This week, you also got an A on your Computer Science test: 23 out of 24 in a college-level class! While I always knew it was possible, I hadn’t seen you do it until this week. You are a brilliant human being. You put that brain into good use this week – and did your “job” (which is school) in a totally awesome way.
But your grades aren’t the only evidence. You did your 1.5-hour shifts of homework, mostly without complaining. You actually worked, even while you were singing. I don’t know how you do it, but I am not going to complain anymore about your singing. You can actually sing and work at the same time. You are an anomaly. (I may still complain when you play thrash metal.)
You came home with a ton of signatures this week. If you keep up this stuff, you will be off to North Carolina for a three-day weekend in May. [This is his “bonus” reward if he works hard and gets signatures.]
Equally important – maybe even more so for you – is that you wore your retainer eight days in a row. You may not know it, but I have been keeping track – and this is the first time in all of 2017 that you’ve worn it more than three days in a row. And you wore it for 8!!!!
I am really impressed with you. It’s been a great week for you, and if you keep it up, your grades will reflect it, your parents will get off your back, and you may even get a trip to North Carolina.
Congratulations, Son. I’m very proud of you. You should be proud of you, too.
Love,
Mom
“Shane,” I said, staring at his online grades. “What happened in English?”
“What do you mean?” he answered, barely looking up from his video game.
“Why are you missing two assignments?”
“Oh, I forgot to turn them in,” he said. “And now it’s too late.”
“You forgot to turn them in?”
“Yeah.”
I thought of Dylan and the many, many, many assignments he has turned in late, especially when he was in middle school. “It can’t be too late,” I said.
I emailed the teacher. The teacher emailed me back. It really was too late.
I couldn’t believe it. Shane had two zeros.
Two weeks went by.
Then, quite suddenly, Shane’s grade in band dropped from 100% to 97.3%. He was missing his weekly practice chart – a paper that represents five days of drum practice – from back in February. Shane has turned in a practice chart, on time, every week for nearly two years.
“Shane,” I said. “You’re missing a practice chart?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said.
“Where is it?”
“It’s in my room. I guess I just forgot to turn it in because there was a substitute.”
“Wait,” I said. “You mean you didn’t turn in your practice chart this week?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I forgot to.”
The missing practice chart on the computer was from two weeks ago.
Something inside me snapped a little.
“That means you have missed two practice charts this quarter!” I shrieked. “And you have two missing assignments in English! What’s going on, Shane?”
“I don’t know,” he said, quite calmly. “I guess I just need to put it somewhere in my binder where I can remember it.”
“I guess you do,” I said.
Since Dylan is the oldest, and first to go through school, I have no idea how I would have handled this with Shane if he had been the oldest, and forgotten four things in two months. Dylan has forgotten way, way, way more than four assignments.
But Dylan has ADHD. He has a biological reason for forgetting.
Shane just forgot to turn in his practice chart.
Twice. In two months.
I have no idea how to put that into perspective. I don’t know if I should worry.
Obviously, I am worried anyway. I am not worried that Shane has ADHD. I am worried that, even without ADHD, the teenage brain is somehow incapable of remembering vital pieces of information. Or maybe it’s the male brain. Or maybe it’s just people in my house. Maybe this is normal human behavior.
I have no idea!
Certainly, I have forgotten things. But I’m not sure I ever – even in my darkest teen years – forgot to turn in an assignment.
So now, just a little bit, I am holding my breath.
Dylan’s decision to drop out of the IB program has not changed our strategy in dealing with the “LD” part of his GT/LD-ness. If anything, in fact, it’s made our resolve stronger.
“You can’t take regular classes and not get A’s,” I told him. “And the only thing you really need to do to get A’s is to turn in your work.”
So he’s turning in his work.
He’s doing it in an unexpected way – but the signature sheet and the 1.5-hour homework shifts every evening are helping. In spite of his resistance to both things, he’s sitting down every evening and actually doing work.
He’s doing it with music blaring, and with non-stop singing. He never stops singing. But he is getting work done. He worked on his “source cards” (which, I assume, means his bibliography) for English for four days. At the end of those four days, all of the zeros he had in English were replaced with A’s.
He is getting A’s in English. It is work, but he is now doing the work.
He is nearly lying down in his chair. Sometimes one size 14 shoe is on the desk while the other is underneath him. He does his work while sitting like a pretzel or a log. But he is doing the work.
Yesterday he texted me from school: “I got an A on my Computer Science test,” he said.
It’s an AP class. And he got an A! He’s been keeping up with his work in the class, so he knows what he’s doing on the test, too!
He’s coming home with signatures on his signature sheet, too. He’s not happy about it. He complains every day about something that happened to make it hard for him to get a signature. But he’s getting those signatures.
He’s being proactive in talking to the teachers. For the first time ever, he knows when things are missing before I do.
When I told him he was missing five assignments – FIVE assignments! – in Government, he held up a folder.
“That’s what this is!” he nearly shouted. He flapped some papers around. “These are the five assignments! Now will you back off and let me do my work?!”
I have heard the term “back off” more times than I can count lately.
I am absolutely thrilled about that.
In fact, I am backing off. Finally.
I can actually do that now.
We have been thinking about IB classes for Dylan since he was in 7th grade. He’s an abstract, high-level thinker, but he’s a hands-on learner. So we decided to put him into the IBCP program – which is perfect for him.
For the IBCP program, Dylan needs to take one two-year IB class, and one one-year IB class. In addition, he needs to take the “pathway” classes, which he’s taken since 9th grade. Dylan chose the computer science pathway, so he’s already taking an AP class in computer science.
For one-year classes, he wanted to take IB music, IB psychology and IB theater. He was very excited about these.
But his two-year classes were less enthralling: IB History, IB Biology, IB Math and IB English. He took biology already and hated it. He’s struggled in math more than anything. So we tossed out those two – which left us with two years of IB History and two years of IB English.
We were still struggling with Dylan’s ability to keep up with the work in a “regular” (Honors) English class. I asked a friend about the History class, and she said it was substantially more homework than the IB English class.
So I sat down to talk to Dylan about it. I showed him the email from my friend, detailing the differences between the two classes. He read it, then stood up.
“I’m not doing it,” he said. “I’m not doing IB.”
And that was it.
Four years of planning, two years of cramming in classes, and all of my IB research – for naught.
In case it helped, I took Dylan’s list of colleges – the ones he picked from our various road trips – and crossed off the ones that would no longer accept him. I showed it to Dylan.
“Really?” he asked. “All of these?”
“Yes,” I said. “You can still apply, but if you don’t take IB or AP classes, they won’t even look at you.”
“Okay,” he said.
And off he went, into his non-IB world.
Surprisingly, the relief I felt was immediate and spectacular.
Dylan took the classroom Driver’s Ed class last July. Occasionally, he asks when he can start driving.
“All you have to do is make an appointment to get your learner’s permit,” I say. It’s the same conversation every time.
“But I don’t even know where to start,” Dylan whines.
“You get on the computer and you google it,” I say.
“I don’t know what to google!”
“Well then,” I say, “you shouldn’t be driving a car.”
“I know how to drive a car!” he says. “I just don’t know how to make an appointment! I don’t even know where to go.”
“Dylan, all you have to do is google ‘Learner’s Permit’ and ‘Maryland’ and you will be well on your way. Everything you need to know is right there on the internet. Do the same thing I would do. Just look it up, and follow the directions.”
“But I just don’t know what to look up!” His voice gets shrill.
“Maybe it’s just a phone call,” I say. “Or maybe you can reserve a time online. How will you ever know if you don’t do a simple google search and find out what you need to do?”
“Well I’m going to wait for Dad to help me,” he says. (Bill made the mistake of saying he would be nearby when Dylan was googling.)
“Dad is not going to help you. You make the appointment if you want to drive a car,” I say.
Usually at this point, Dylan’s argument sidetracks into something like, “But Dad said he would help me!” or “I have no trouble driving a car!”
It’s a vicious cycle.
“Dylan,” I say, “make the appointment. Otherwise, you will not drive.”
Shane is a good photographer. One of the few things he wanted for Christmas was a nice, professional camera. And surprise! Santa got one for him.
Two months later, I saw Shane’s camera on the floor, half under the couch. So I left a note on Shane’s bed. “Pick up your camera, and put it somewhere safe,” said the note, “or you will no longer have a nice, professional camera.”
The camera disappeared from its spot on the floor.
A few days later, Shane had a friend over, and they wanted to make a video. But they couldn’t find Shane’s camera.
“I’ve looked everywhere it could be,” Shane said. “And it’s not in any of the places I would put it.” They didn’t make a video.
The next day, I asked Shane: “Did you find your camera yet?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t have any idea where I put it.” We had this same conversation for days, with me getting progressively more upset. How could he not remember where he put it?
“I’ve been telling you for years,” I admonished, “that when you put something down, you need to picture it in your mind so you can remember where you put it!”
Then, quite suddenly, I had a revelation.
Shane had a vision processing disorder. He CAN’T picture it in his mind, because he never developed the skill to do that when he was a baby, or a toddler, or a preschooler. That’s why things get tossed all over the place, and why he can never find things after he puts them down.
Shane is severely lacking in visual memory skills! That’s why he’s always had trouble spelling – and I knew that. But I didn’t think about his inability to remember where he put things.
After he went through all that therapy at age 6-7, I forgot about the things he didn’t learn in the years before he started.
So I hopped on the internet and, sure enough, the part of the brain that allows Shane to write visual stories and songs, and take such great photos, is a completely different part of the brain than the one that creates visual memories.
I re-read the symptoms of kids with vision processing disorder. Among other characteristics, one article noted that memory issues were likely:
Long- or short-term visual memory issues: Kids with either type have difficulty recalling what they’ve seen.
So I started looking for ideas on how to improve his visual memory. It’s fun, actually. These are the games I most enjoyed as a kid: matching games, concentration, what’s missing?, etc. We’ve done a few games this week, and Shane seems to like them, too.
Sure enough, it’s a struggle for him. Not a struggle like, gee the kid can’t remember anything! – but a struggle like, huh, I never realized how much he needed to improve this skill.
Days later, Shane found his camera. It was in a rather neutral place, and none of us understood why he hadn’t been able to find it earlier.
I was glad he found it.
But I’m even happier that we can help him with something he’s going to need for the rest of his life.
Back when Dylan was in third grade, I found on the internet results from a tiny little study of 447 children. Those results included a comparison of their brain scans – the normal brain versus the ADHD brain. The 2007 article declared:
“When some parts of the brain stick to their normal timetable for development, while others lag behind, ADHD is the result.”
The scans – and the tiny study – confirmed for me something that made sense about Dylan. It was the first study I’d ever found that made sense. It said that ADHD was, essentially, a disorder caused by late brain development. Certain areas in the ADHD brain didn’t develop at a normal rate.
Dylan was a late bloomer. His whole life, he was a little behind his peers. He had to undergo speech therapy at age two, for example. The most noticeable slow development, though, was his teeth. His baby teeth didn’t start to come in until he was ten months old, and then they didn’t fall out until nearly two years after the teeth of most kids in his age group.
So when I saw the ADHD brain comparisons, I printed out several copies. I took them to every school meeting we had until – well, actually I still have the scan print-outs.
But today, I no longer need them. The Washington Post has finally verified everything I’ve ever believed about what was going on in Dylan’s brain. The results of a much more substantial study (3,242 people) have finally been published, with the title: “Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is linked to delayed brain development.”
I knew this, but few others did.
The gist is this: Dylan’s brain isn’t developing at the same rate as that of his peers. Five of seven of the subcortical regions that were studied were shown to be significantly smaller in volume than those same regions in their non-ADHD peers. These five regions are responsible for such things as processing rewards, responding to stimuli, goal-directed action and forming memories.
In other words, they’ve confirmed what I’ve suspected for all these years: there is a biological reason that Dylan doesn’t function in the same way as his peers.
God knows he tries. In fact, he’s been working so much harder, and at such a slower rate, for so long, Dylan has nearly given up. Even though his brain is more developed in those crucial areas now, he’s giving up on himself. And it’s terribly sad, because there is a decent chance that eventually, he’ll be able to keep up with everyone.
In fact, knowing Dylan, he will probably excel beyond his own wildest dreams.
Meanwhile, other people with ADHD are just starting out. They’ve never seen that tiny little study I saw, and they’re wondering why their child is lagging behind in so many areas. And now they can know – not just suspect – that there’s a biological reason for their issues, just like there’s a biological reason for Dylan’s issues.
For now, here is my favorite line from the article:
“(ADHD) should be considered a problem of delayed brain maturation and not, as it is often portrayed, a problem of motivation or parenting.”
ADHD is NOT a problem of motivation or parenting.
So here I am, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
Again.
This year’s IEP meeting for Dylan was a very popular place to be.
Teachers came from every corner of the school. Some of them have had Dylan as a student for more than a year. Some of them taught him last semester and weren’t likely to teach him again. Some of them had only taught him for two weeks.
But they all showed up at Dylan’s IEP meeting. Administrators and special education administrators had to get up and find more chairs. The room was so crowded, Bill and I just sat, in awe, and stared for a moment.
Dylan wasn’t the slightest bit interested. In fact, he seemed a little annoyed at all the attention.
But we all sat, and we listened to the reports.
The first teacher started with a thought that became a theme throughout the meeting. “Forgive the analogy,” he said. “But essentially, I see a tale of two Dylans,” he said. “I see the Dylan who’s bright and capable and enthusiastic and smart. And then I see the Dylan who gets overwhelmed and shuts down, and doesn’t turn in his work.”
Five additional teachers said virtually the same thing. They all saw in Dylan huge potential; they also saw it frequently going unrealized.
The words “organization” and “communication” were mentioned many times. Teachers said that he simply didn’t seem to know when things were due, even when they told him repeatedly. Even when they wrote it down on the board, day after day. Even when they put it online so he could check – and get – the assignments at home. Even when they said the same thing to Dylan, day after day, and received acknowledgement.
But the work rarely materializes. And it almost never materializes on the day it’s due.
Dylan is now under a strict 1.5-hour study time rule at home. He is going to do this time – supervised and timed, because we already learned that we can’t trust him to be unsupervised or untimed. He’s going to do it five days a week, with or without the whining and complaining and moaning that comes with it.
In addition, I came up with an idea (thanks partially to ADDitude online magazine) to make Dylan accountable for talking to his teachers, for finding out what’s due every day. I created a “signature sheet” that Dylan can use every day, with every teacher, to have them sign off that his work has been completed and turned in.
Everyone was on board with the idea – except Dylan. During his first day with the signature sheet, he came home with two signatures. The next day, he had zero signatures. The day after that, he had one.
This is with the teachers knowing, every day, that there is a signature sheet, and that he should be asking them to sign it.
In the meeting he said, “When the teacher says, ‘The homework is page six,’ I don’t think I should go up to them right after that and say, ‘What’s the homework?”
“I think the teachers would prefer you did that instead of just not turning it in,” I said. All of the teachers bobbed their heads in agreement.
Everyone wants Dylan to succeed.
Now Dylan just has to decide to do that.
