Our story begins with an extremely bright five year old just entering Kindergarten. In the interest of keeping this relatively brief, I will sum up the last 3 years of our oldest son's experience. After prompting from B's Kindergarten teacher we had him evaluated by the good people at Beljan Psychological Services. The results diagnosed him provisionally with ADD (since his results were inconsistent) and giftedness. Since we were not ready to jump on the medication highway to treat his "possible" ADD, we followed the Doctor's behavior modification suggestions. Unfortunately, the private school that B was attending was not able to help B be successful. They could not adjust the course work to make it more challenging for him and they didn't really seem to have the desire to help our son in any way. In hindsight, we should have pulled him out of there at Christmas. But we didn't. We knew his school was not a good fit for him and went searching for a new one. Parental lesson learned: look at MANY schools before deciding on one. I was certain that this private school was going to be an amazing fit for us. It wasn't.
B went into first grade with a bit of trepidation. However, we were pretty confident that he was in the right spot. He was placed in the gifted cluster classroom and his teacher did amazing things that year to heal his bruised self esteem. That teacher was nothing short of a miracle for B. In fact, B sobbed the first few nights of summer vacation because he was so sad she wasn't going to be his teacher in second grade. He still had his issues with completing work, but the teacher made it work.
Now B is in second grade. He is still in the gifted cluster classroom and, again, he has an amazing teacher. In August I read an article about using neurofeedback to treat ADD. I decided to call the doctor that was interviewed to see if B would be a good candidate. Since he was never formally diagnosed with ADD, I wanted to make sure that he could help my son before investing the time and money. For a month, I read books and scoured the internet for information about neurofeedback therapy. In October, we took B in to have his brain mapped. His map didn't present as a typical ADD brain. Of course it didn't. However, it did confirm his anxiety, his antsy-ness, and his inability to calm down. We started treatment immediately. We have completed 20+ sessions and while we have seen good results regarding his anxiety, his school performance has taken a nose dive. He is simply not doing his work. He is totally unable to attend and instead he will self-stimulate by fidgeting and getting out of his seat.
This past weekend we took B in to have his brain mapped again. This time the map showed improvement in the areas that the doctor had been targeting. He also said that his map is more typical of an ADD brain. I guess he isn't producing fast enough waves in the front of his brain and this is contributing to his inability to focus. We now have a new plan of action and I am hopeful that this will help him in school. I also do want to say that he has an AMAZING team behind him at his school. They informed us that they have a big bag of tricks and will be constantly brainstorming ways to help B be successful. I worry about Mr. B daily, and his team at school has made this a lot easier.
I typically don't talk about B's challenges, but I wanted to share information regarding Neurofeedback therapy as treatment for ADD. Medication may be in B's future, but we wanted to try everything else first. Between his diet, behavior modification systems, life skill acquisition, and neurofeedback I am hopeful that B's brain can heal and be trained to perform as it should. Neurofeedback therapy is not an option that is discussed much in the doctor's office, if at all, and it should be. I just wanted to share that there are other options out there.
As a parent of a gifted child, who also has ADD, I have had a hard time finding a community of parents with children in the same boat as B. So, I am sharing this because I want to reach out to those of you who do struggle with this on a daily basis. It can be challenging, and frustrating, and heart breaking to no end. You aren't alone.
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