Many children with ADHD have learning style problems that once corrected may lead to improved grades and academic performance.

Quite often, children with ADHD have problems learning and remembering what they have learned, because of the principal traits of their ADHD behavior disorder; poor concentration and short attention span.

Even when properly treated with ADHD medications, many of these kids and teens will continue to suffer bad grades and academic failure because ADHD drugs do not treat or cure learning problems. ADHD drugs are used to decrease impulsivity and improve concentration in hopes that by doing so, the ADHD child will be able to better learn.

Many ADHD children will improve grades once treated with one of the medications for ADHD. However, if the child’s learning style does not match his or her learning experience, no amount of any drug will help improve those grades.

What do I mean by “Learning Styles?”

I’m sure you know friends and family who were “touchers”-they had to touch everything in order to understand what was going on or to learn a new skill. We call those persons “Kinesthetic learners” or “hands-on learners.” Kinesthetic learning is just one of several learning styles that ADHD children may exhibit or need in order to succeed in the classroom.

Other learning styles include:

• Primarily Auditory (what they hear)
• Primarily Visual (what they see)
• Combined Auditory-Visual
• Combined Auditory-visual-kinesthetic
• And just about in combination you can image!

Hopefully, while your child or teen with ADHD was being evaluated for his or her learning difficulty and behavior problem, someone also took a look at his or her learning style. I think assessing learning styles should be a part of every child’s learning experience, whether ADHD or not.

My friend Pat Wyman, considered one of the foremost experts in learning styles evaluation in the United States, has just published a new article explaining learning styles in detail.

You might wish to visit Pat’s website (http://www.howtolearn.com/2012/02/how-learning-styles-help-improve-grades-in-school) and take a look at all that valuable information and use her free learning styles assessment tool to decide what’s going on with your child’s learning experience. I think you’ll discover it more than worth your time.

Many ADHD children and teens suffer a mismatch in their learning styles and their learning experience causing poor academic performance and failing grades. If your child is making poor grades, you should check his or her learning style before asking your doctor to increase of change his or her ADHD medications.

Dr. Frank

You might be interested in these previous articles:

Using Kindle, I Pad, Nook may improve ADHD Teen’s Reading Grades

http://www.mistakenforadhd.com/2012/01/using-kindle-i-pad-or-nook-may-improve-adhd-teens-reading-grades/

Reading Problems-Getting inattentive ADHD Children to Read

http://www.mistakenforadhd.com/2011/08/reading-problems-how-to-get-an-adhd-child-with-inattentiveness-to-read/

ADHD Focus Strategies-Learning Styles Testing

http://www.mistakenforadhd.com/2011/07/adhd-focus-strategies-learning-styles-testing/ 

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