The Research Says!……….There are Alternatives to ADHD Medication.
We were not excited about this approach, but we wanted to help our daughter and so we acted on the expert’s recommendation. For Catie, this strategy did not prove helpful. The ADHD medications we tried made our fun and happy girl crabby, moody and dropped her appetite.
So what do you do when the ADHD help you seek does not really help?
New peer-reviewed research published in the Journal of Mental Health and Clinical Psychology suggests that weaknesses in key cognitive skills like processing speed, working memory, and long-term memory are critical but often overlooked contributors to the cognitive and learning struggles we see in ADHD. The research suggests that treatments that do not include cognitive skills training often come up short in their approach to improving attention deficits.
Weaknesses in memory and processing speed (or other cognitive skills) often manifest as attention issues. For example, if a child has slow processing speed it means they have to exert much greater mental energy to complet an academic task than their peers. The effect? Given the mental exertion required, the child is not able to sustain focus as long and is often seen daydreaming or off-task. From the outside the issue manifests as an attention issue (the child is zoned out) but a main driver of this behavior is weak processing speed.
Unless this weak skill is strengthened, strategies to improve attention may fail, as a key driver has not been addressed.
At LearningRx®, we provide customized, one-on-one training that strengthens cognitive deficits to improve not only attention but multiple cognitive skills and overall performance. LearningRx can be life changing for those who struggle with attention issues.
