Your Learning Disabilities

[Vincent Vega]

I'm colourblind to a pretty severe extent (at least more than the majority of colourblind people). You'd be surprised how much of a learning impediment that is, particularly in the more elementary levels of education.

[arfink]

First of all, I had no idea until college I had an LD. I got very high standardised testing scores, and previous psychological evaluations were strong, and nothing was ever detected until college. That's when I discovered I have ADD. I was prescribed a drug for it, something called Stratera. It seemed pretty helpful, but it had some really severe limitations. For example: it's a very powerful neuro-stimulant, and it lasts for 8 hours. Basically just long enough to get me through part of a day when I was at seminary. They had us going basically around the clock, from 5 AM until close to 10 or 11 depending on how much extra work you had to get done for classes. Which means my window of coverage lasted from around 8 AM when I could take the medicine til 4 PM. Holy hour was at 6AM, which was just far too early to take the medicine since I'd lose it in my afternoon classes.

Once the stimulant wears off you crash really hard. So every day after my last class (which got done about 3:30) I would start to feel really slow and tired, and get nasty headaches. I would fight through evening prayer, and then try to get some dinner, if I didn't just go to my room and fall asleep. See, many days I had to get a nap in (in place of dinner) because the seminary's study hours were in the evening after dinner, and I couldn't afford to miss out on doing work during a time when the whole place was silent. And of course, like most psych-drugs, they're also [b]mood altering[/b] in very unpredictable ways. You cannot imagine how much that totally screws with everything in your life, especially prayer and discernment. So yeah, the drugs helped kinda- but they were a big detriment too. I eventually decided to just try and make it without drugs and train myself to learn without their aid. it was tough, but my breakthrough was the discovery that I can associate ideas with visual stimulus far faster than without, so I began to develop a system of visual note taking, or of illustrating my notes after class when I was reviewing. My grades suffered a little during this process, but it was worth it.

TL;DR summary: don't rely on the drugs to help you out, unless you need them for other anti-psychotic reasons. It's not worth it.

Edited June 25, 2011 by arfink

[AccountDeleted]

I don't have a learning disability myself, but my daughter did have learning difficulties from RAD and PTS and I think she might even have had mild ADHD but the doctor we were going to at the time didn't want to test for it - she seemed to think it was a 'fad' and 'everyone thinks they have it' so she never got any medication for it.

In her final two years of high school I had to take her out and home school her because the learning difficulties got so great that she just wasn't keeping up with the work. The one to one attention certainly helpd her a lot, but I was able to see first hand how difficult it was for her to keep her attention on the matter at hand, and how some things were so much harder for her than others.

While I certainly would be careful about the use of medication, I think if a person needs it for any condition, then by all means, use it. Where would diabetics be without their medication, or schizophrenics or anyone with any kind of a chemical, hormonal or biological imbalance?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1309013111' post='2258584']
I'm colourblind to a pretty severe extent (at least more than the majority of colourblind people). You'd be surprised how much of a learning impediment that is, particularly in the more elementary levels of education.
[/quote]

What colours don't you see?

[faithcecelia]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1309025095' post='2258652']
First of all, I had no idea until college I had an LD. I got very high standardised testing scores, and previous psychological evaluations were strong, and nothing was ever detected until college. That's when I discovered I have ADD. I was prescribed a drug for it, something called Stratera. It seemed pretty helpful, but it had some really severe limitations. For example: it's a very powerful neuro-stimulant, and it lasts for 8 hours. Basically just long enough to get me through part of a day when I was at seminary. They had us going basically around the clock, from 5 AM until close to 10 or 11 depending on how much extra work you had to get done for classes. Which means my window of coverage lasted from around 8 AM when I could take the medicine til 4 PM. Holy hour was at 6AM, which was just far too early to take the medicine since I'd lose it in my afternoon classes.

Once the stimulant wears off you crash really hard. So every day after my last class (which got done about 3:30) I would start to feel really slow and tired, and get nasty headaches. I would fight through evening prayer, and then try to get some dinner, if I didn't just go to my room and fall asleep. See, many days I had to get a nap in (in place of dinner) because the seminary's study hours were in the evening after dinner, and I couldn't afford to miss out on doing work during a time when the whole place was silent. And of course, like most psych-drugs, they're also [b]mood altering[/b] in very unpredictable ways. You cannot imagine how much that totally screws with everything in your life, especially prayer and discernment. So yeah, the drugs helped kinda- but they were a big detriment too. I eventually decided to just try and make it without drugs and train myself to learn without their aid. it was tough, but my breakthrough was the discovery that I can associate ideas with visual stimulus far faster than without, so I began to develop a system of visual note taking, or of illustrating my notes after class when I was reviewing. My grades suffered a little during this process, but it was worth it.

TL;DR summary: don't rely on the drugs to help you out, unless you need them for other anti-psychotic reasons. It's not worth it.
[/quote]


This is interesting, I am suprised they didn't try you with different drugs (either instead or as well) as its not good to have the big crash.

My brother has ADD, Tourettes and dyslexia. The ADD and dyslexia were diagnosed when he was 10, the Tourettes only a year or so ago. For about the last 5yrs he has been part of a study at the Maudsley Hospital in London. Its a mental health training and research centre, the biggest in the country, and they wanted to study adults who were in the first big wave of diagnoses when they were kids, when it was still expected that it was something you outgrew. This has been absolutely amazing for him personally, and is also helping gain imformation for the future too. As part of the study he has been able to have all sorts of counselling, therapies etc all starting from the point that he has ADD, ie Anger Management for people with ADD, Self Esteem for people with ADD, etc etc. He also had his drugs changed a few times (tho i don't know what he is currently on). It was during one of his assessments there that he was also diagnosed with Tourettes. Thankfully this is not at the worst end of its spectrum and he has been able to learn techniques to help him control the verbal tics.

10yrs ago my brother nearly threw me through a glass door, he was very scary to be with. Now, thanks in a big way to this support at the Maudsley, he is calm, sensible and married, the change in him is phenominal and its so lovely to have a happy brother at last.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='nunsense' timestamp='1309025697' post='2258657']
I don't have a learning disability myself, but my daughter did have learning difficulties from RAD and PTS and I think she might even have had mild ADHD but the doctor we were going to at the time didn't want to test for it - she seemed to think it was a 'fad' and 'everyone thinks they have it' so she never got any medication for it.

In her final two years of high school I had to take her out and home school her because the learning difficulties got so great that she just wasn't keeping up with the work. The one to one attention certainly helpd her a lot, but I was able to see first hand how difficult it was for her to keep her attention on the matter at hand, and how some things were so much harder for her than others.

While I certainly would be careful about the use of medication, I think if a person needs it for any condition, then by all means, use it. Where would diabetics be without their medication, or schizophrenics or anyone with any kind of a chemical, hormonal or biological imbalance?
[/quote]
My son has dylexia and disgraphia, so reading was slow and writing entire complete sentences were very difficult in the older grades. He needed to do all his work verbally: He could explain in great detail the entire French Revolution, but couldn't write it down coherently.
The high school wanted to put him in Special Ed until they discovered his IQ was over 150, and he could do any math in front of him, and he should be in the gifted program. The school came up with an excellent program [i]on paper[/i] requiring the teachers to test him orally instead of written exams, all his teachers but one refused to follow it so he dropped out. He signed up for his GED immediately and passed everything with flying colors and started college.

[CatherineM]

My oldest foster son had dysgraphia. That is a hard one to get the school to understand.

[Sarah147]

Wow! Thank you all for the great posts and for sharing with us.

[b]Silver[/b], learning languages is really tough for me, too. I think because I had trouble with learning english, so it's kind of that way with everything. I also had to have speech therapy, too, as a child. I still say some things a little funny but in 2010 the therapist said there wasn't enough to work on.

Thank you for the videos! I will be watching those.


[b]Catherine[/b], talking on the phone or even in person can be hard at times. It usually seems to be if they talk softly, quietly, too fast, or with an accent or weird tonality. But I do sometimes glaze over the words of people that usually come through fine.


[b]arfink[/b], it's unfortunate that your medicine didn't work out that great. I'm still trying to figure if the side effects will be tolerable or not. I'm actually on a break now until my composition class in August, as currently I'm evaluating my fatigue level while using a sleep apnea mask.

Could you please explain the visual note taking?


[b]Nunsense[/b], that sounds like me. That's why I went into homeschooling, but for many reasons, it didn't work out that well. But for the subjects that I did one on one with a tutor/teacher, that helped a lot.



In 2010, my speech-language pathologist found that I'm more of a visual learner than auditory. I wonder if that has to do with my poor attention; with reading, I can go at my pace and re-read as needed, but in hearing things, it's not so. A friend suggested I try reading books aloud to myself, and see if that helps (getting visual plus auditory).

To everyone that has dealt with someone having dyslexia, once they got to where they could read, how did they treat the problems with poor retention, comprehension, retrieval and memory? I'd like to know what I can do because I didn't get that far in therapy.

Do any of you have ideas of how to become a better writer? My friend that has seen my letters said that I have good ideas and expression, but when put on paper, my syntax isn't so good, and I mix up verbs/nouns. I'm taking a college composition this fall, so I'm hoping that will help. And I took some adult ed grammer/english courses.

Do any of you have suggestions on how to better note-take? I poorly organize and figure out the important information.

I did best in the courses I did one-on-one with tutor/teachers... I made good grades when I took honors: pre-algebra, 1 algebra, 2 algebra, geometry, and regular pre-calculus for high school, as well as biology, physical science, and honors chemistry. So, I have the ability, it's just such a let down that I have to work sooooo hard and it doesn't stick long after the testing. If it had been in a classroom setting, I don't know how I would have done.

Edited June 27, 2011 by JoyfulLife

[MissScripture]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1309193553' post='2259105']
Wow! Thank you all for the great posts and for sharing with us.

[b]Silver[/b], learning languages is really tough for me, too. I think because I had trouble with learning english, so it's kind of that way with everything. I also had to have speech therapy, too, as a child. I still say some things a little funny but in 2010 the therapist said there wasn't enough to work on.

Thank you for the videos! I will be watching those.


[b]Catherine[/b], talking on the phone or even in person can be hard at times. It usually seems to be if they talk softly, quietly, too fast, or with an accent or weird tonality. But I do sometimes glaze over the words of people that usually come through fine.


[b]arfink[/b], it's unfortunate that your medicine didn't work out that great. I'm still trying to figure if the side effects will be tolerable or not. I'm actually on a break now until my composition class in August, as currently I'm evaluating my fatigue level while using a sleep apnea mask.

Could you please explain the visual note taking?


[b]Nunsense[/b], that sounds like me. That's why I went into homeschooling, but for many reasons, it didn't work out that well. But for the subjects that I did one on one with a tutor/teacher, that helped a lot.



In 2010, my speech-language pathologist found that I'm more of a visual learner than auditory. I wonder if that has to do with my poor attention; with reading, I can go at my pace and re-read as needed, but in hearing things, it's not so. A friend suggested I try reading books aloud to myself, and see if that helps (getting visual plus auditory).

To everyone that has dealt with someone having dyslexia, once they got to where they could read, how did they treat the problems with poor retention, comprehension, retrieval and memory? I'd like to know what I can do because I didn't get that far in therapy.

Do any of you have ideas of how to become a better writer? My friend that has seen my letters said that I have good ideas and expression, but when put on paper, my syntax isn't so good, and I mix up verbs/nouns. I'm taking a college composition this fall, so I'm hoping that will help. And I took some adult ed grammer/english courses.

Do any of you have suggestions on how to better note-take? I poorly organize and figure out the important information.

I did best in the courses I did one-on-one with tutor/teachers... I made good grades when I took honors: pre-algebra, 1 algebra, 2 algebra, geometry, and regular pre-calculus for high school, as well as biology, physical science, and honors chemistry. So, I have the ability, it's just such a let down that I have to work sooooo hard and it doesn't stick long after the testing. If it had been in a classroom setting, I don't know how I would have done.
[/quote]
If the difficulty with auditory is that you can't go at your own pace, are you able to record lectures, so you can play them back later while you take notes and then you can stop them when you need to, to review and make sure you understand what was going on?

[Sarah147]

[quote name='MissScripture' timestamp='1309203773' post='2259168']
If the difficulty with auditory is that you can't go at your own pace, are you able to record lectures, so you can play them back later while you take notes and then you can stop them when you need to, to review and make sure you understand what was going on?
[/quote]


I haven't tried taping a class, but I've tried to take notes from homilies on video, and other recordings, and I could only hold onto very few words and had to keep rewinding. It just doesn't work well.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1309286566' post='2259780']
I haven't tried taping a class, but I've tried to take notes from homilies on video, and other recordings, and I could only hold onto very few words and had to keep rewinding. It just doesn't work well.
[/quote]
It might work better doing it with a lecture, since you would've heard the material once already, but maybe not.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1308950003' post='2258251']
Hello,
[b]I especially would like to know how you deal with the issues with poor comprehension, retention, retrieval and memory? This really makes education tough as I don't remember everything I learn very well (it also doesn't sink in immediately and takes a lot of going over), and if I end up going into a work apostolate, I'll need to be able to learn and work at something. Even if I go into the retreat/spirituality apostolate of the SsEW, I still need to work with papers, studying, possible teaching, etc.
[/b]


God bless you.
[/quote]
One of the best ways to remember something is to write it done in your own words, so take copious notes and study them. If I can write something in my own words then I have a much better chance of remembering it
My son drew little boxes with arrows and made memory maps to help him remember..

[dairygirl4u2c]

probably to no surprise to many here, i have mental health issues.
this mostly affects me in extreme situations, particularly stressful ones.
manic depressive, bipolar. a running diagnosis was at one point also paranoid schizophrenic (hadn't been sleeping due to the bipolar and mania, so i think it's more from that... as the doctor said, 'if you wanna see a cat hallucinate, don't let it sleep...') possibly autistic but he didn't get to know me well enough he said... but my friend who knows me well and might have mental health issues thinks i might have aspergers. sp?
the inability to sit still in church i always wondered about, and some other places. they seemed pretty sure i dont have adhd or add, given how much i've accomplished and how well i can focus etc.
it all actually helps me learn, particularly the 'autistic' elements of it, the aspergers? part of it, but sometimes it inhibits me from focusing on things that i should be, so a hindrance.

Edited June 28, 2011 by dairygirl4u2c

[Adrestia]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1309193553' post='2259105']
Do any of you have ideas of how to become a better writer? My friend that has seen my letters said that I have good ideas and expression, but when put on paper, my syntax isn't so good, and I mix up verbs/nouns. I'm taking a college composition this fall, so I'm hoping that will help. And I took some adult ed grammer/english courses.

Do any of you have suggestions on how to better note-take? I poorly organize and figure out the important information.

I did best in the courses I did one-on-one with tutor/teachers... I made good grades when I took honors: pre-algebra, 1 algebra, 2 algebra, geometry, and regular pre-calculus for high school, as well as biology, physical science, and honors chemistry. So, I have the ability, it's just such a let down that I have to work sooooo hard and it doesn't stick long after the testing. If it had been in a classroom setting, I don't know how I would have done.
[/quote]

These tricks work for me, but may not be the right solutions for you. Just don't give up.

For writing, I found that reading more helped me. Instead of trying to force myself to read boring novels on the school reading list, I found things that were interesting to me. If length is a problem for you, try magazine articles instead of books. [I now subscribe to Smithsonian Magazine.] By reading more well-written articles, it became easier for me to express my ideas in my writing.

For note taking, I would have to re-write my notes to make them useful. I could never determine what was important during the lecture. I would also go over my notes with a classmate to see if I missed anything big.

For general stuff, I make to do lists and try to keep to a routine. In fact, I have a pen & paper with my most of the time. There's a note pad in every room of my house. My friends & family have all heard me say "anything that I don't write down doesn't exist."

I also found that changing my diet helped. On days when I have protein for breakfast (usually an egg), I can concentrate better through the morning. On days when I have cereal for breakfast, I'm so hungry by 11:30 that I can't focus. This is, of course, after two cups of coffee.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='tgoldson' timestamp='1309299119' post='2259918']


I also found that changing my diet helped. On days when I have protein for breakfast (usually an egg), I can concentrate better through the morning. On days when I have cereal for breakfast, I'm so hungry by 11:30 that I can't focus. This is, of course, after two cups of coffee.


[/quote]
Protein always helps, so peanut butter, eggs, bacon etc are my usual breakfast. Cereal other than oatmeal gives you a sugar high and a fast crash, its better at night to put you to sleep.