Why Writing Is So Painful for Kids with ADHD

Math and reading are likely no walk in the park, either. And it all traces back to executive functioning — our brains' ability to absorb, organize, and act on information.

Modafinil200

September 21, 2021 at 12:03 pm

In “more than half of the children diagnosed with ADHD also have learning or behavioral problems”, we need to highlight “diagnosed”. These numbers don’t actually mean that more than half of children with ADHD have such difficulties, but rather that children without such problems are likely to go undiagnosed. That was my case. I daydreamed, stimmed and forgot things a lot, but excelled in academics. I’m also hyperlexic.

“Reading a paragraph aloud twice and being unable to answer questions about the content” is in no way a sign of learning disabilities. I can’t understand anything when reading aloud, and have always excelled at academics. Actually, only people with very poor reading skills benefit from reading aloud. For many people, reading aloud makes it way harder to understand the content, all the more for people with ADHD and/or hyperlexia. When reading aloud, we need to interpret the text phonetically, produce it (verbal production is an extremely complex process) and deal with the distracting auditory input from our own voice, all while speeding down our reading pace to only a few words per working memory process-save cycle. How is anyone supposed to understand anything while reading aloud?

That last piece of advice is the best: the more challenging school is, the better for children with ADHD.