Hi- you all know what Jon has gone through with his hospitalizations and misdx's etc. He was doing so well on Focalinxr 15mg at 8am and then 5mg quick acting if he needs it at noon or one.

Well, I homeschool and am homeschooling through the summer. I have noticed in the last week that Jon's handwriting has completely deteriorated. He sits and stares into space and twirls his hair a lot when he is supposed to be doing his work. Yesterday, unknowingly, my husband and I both gave Jon the 5mg at noon and his work was incredible- handwriting was great, he wanted to keep working and not stop.

I am so afraid of going up on his meds. I remember the rebound, the tantrums, the everything that almost destroyed our whole family. Actually, I am not over it yet. I just went off an antidepressant that my doctor prescribed and am having a really rough time with the side effects of going off it (something they never tell you). I don't intend to tell the doctor that he needs to go up in dose. I don't care about his handwriting or that it is taking longer to do his work. He is not having temper tantrums and doesn't scream very much. He is telling me when his brother or sister are mean instead of retaliating.

Please tell me what y'all think.

Thanks

Randy

Randy,

I know how you feel.  They are wanting to up Emily's Concerta to 72 mg this school year and that scares me a lot because of the recent diagnosis of Anxiety disorder.  Is it possible to just see how he does on the upped dose without telling the dr, I know they only give you so much for a month, that way you can see if the other problems surface again?

If the handwriting and such aren't a big problem for you maybe you can just hold off for awhile.  He is doing so well.

I'm so sorry you have to deal with this, you've been through so much already.

Good luck!!

This is out of left field, but have you thought about teaching him to type and using a computer for lessons? 

Hi,

I agree with the keyboarding idea. My son age 11 can type about 50 words a minute. He was taught in school and took a short after school course. This has been a tremendous help to his writing skills. The program his school uses is called Mavis Beacon. A writing project that would take most students an hour to complete takes him about 15 minutes. A very helpful skill for an ADHD kid. Since writing for an hour would take him about three hours to complete. He is a very good writer if given a computer.

This is not uncommon for the ADHD child because they put so much energy into thinking about what they are going to write that they cant transfer the thoughts on paper at the same time. There are other reasons as well for the writing problems which are explained below. This is called Dysgraphia. This is a problem in school when the child is taking a written test because not only is writing time slow but sometimes the handwriting is illegible as well. The teacher can't grade a paper if they can't read the answers. This is defintiely something to be concerned about because your child might have the right answers but fail because they can't get it down on paper. Accomodations should defintiely be made whereas the child is allowed to use a lap top computer to do assignments and if the child has an IEP, it should be included in the IEP as an accomodation. However, with effective medication, writing skills greatly improve. Read more below about Dysgraphia:

Students with an attention deficit disorder (especially with hyperactivity) often experience rather significant difficulty with writing and formulas in general and handwriting in particular. This is because ADHD students also have difficulty organizing and sequencing detailed information. In addition, ADHD students are often processing information at a very rapid rate and simply don't have the fine-motor coordination needed to "keep up" with their thoughts.

Some students can also experience writing difficulty because of a general auditory or language processing weakness. Because of their difficulty learning and understanding language in general, they obviously have difficulty with language expression. Recall that written language is the most difficult form of language expression.

Although most students with dysgraphia do not have visual or perceptual processing problems, some students with a visual processing weakness will experience difficulty with writing speed and clarity simply because they aren't able to fully process the visual information as they are placing it on the page. 

My son has a terrible time with the physical act of writing. We homeschool and I allow him to do his school work on a laptop but still require him to practice his handwriting. He is producing so much more work and his handwriting is improving since he isn't being tortured to do all his school work by hand.

We recently had the full screening for Aspbergers. Aspbergers was ruled out, but found out he would qualify for an accomendation at school to allow him to use a laptop. I think the medical term is dysgraphia.