HELP! child not listening

[bai]

My DS is 4 and a half. Recently he has stopped listening to us at home and in school. teachers are getting very frustrated, things are improving at home gradually. Most likely he will need an evaluation for ADHD. If he does have ADHD what can I do to help improve his listening? Does anyone have any guidance for this? He is also getting a little clingy everyday, tears with small things, maybe because both at school and home we are trying to discipline him. Maybe our ways are incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Hi-
I am sorry to hear things are so difficult right now.

My first thought goes to the basics: hearing. Are you sure your son is hearing well? My almost 8 year old, who has had clear hearing check ups, started not responding to us this year and it turned out both of his ears were completely filled with fluid. So, that is a real avenue to explore....

Another avenue of exploration might be auditory processing. That is when a child tests as having good hearing, but does not process the input correctly. For instance, the same son has foreground-background auditory processing difficulties. What that means for him is that he cannot distinguish between, for instance, the teacher talking to him, the kids whispering, the radiator hissing, etc. It all comes at him at the same volume. It's like when you cant hear people speaking to you at a cocktail party. [A phenomenal place for checking this out is Development Dynamics in Bethesda. People travel across the country to use them for this purpose. ]

If you can't hear people or it's all a jumble, kids will act AS IF they have ADD --- it's hard to sit still and attend if it is gibberish to you. And, of course, it is quite anxiety provoking as well -- the world doesn't make a lot of sense and it seems to make sense to others - that could explain clinginess.

If that all doesn't pan out, there are ADD specialists. One person I found to be good is Dr. Nora Galil located near Politics and Prose. She was formerly the head of inpatient unit at Childrens Hospital for mental health. She is very experienced and QUICK -- she has seen it all and gets a quick read.

If I can help anymore, feel free to contact me at [e-mail]

Good luck!!

[bai]

Thank you so much. You're the first to provide any direction. I will ask his doc to see if I can get a hearing evaluation. His teacher suggested it too. Thank you again.

[Anonymous]

We've been to the audiology lab at Georgetown University for the full hearing exam. Also have been to Development Dynamics on E-W highway in Bethesda for the AP evaluation.

[Anonymous]

Their email:
[e-mail] <[e-mail]>

[zumbamama]

Is he doing anything in particular when he is not listening? When my DS is playing legos, or reading a book, he gets very, very focused on what he is doing and won't hear anything unless I tap him on the shoulder. I am like this too if I am painting, reading, or choreographing...I block everything else out. DH gets irritated sometimes at this and thinks my son and I are ignoring him, when really we are just concentrating on something very deeply.

But getting his hearing checked is a good idea anyway.

[bai]

most of his "no listening" is in school when the teacher wants him to stop doing something in class. Mostly it is pertaining to him talking when he is not supposed to. At home, it's more when he is watching his "scheduled" tv program, it's like he can't hear! He is also "loud", that was more the reason the teacher recommended hearing test.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was concerned about your comment on disclipling your child and how he was clingy. PLEASE PLEASE read, "The difficult child". by Howard Glasser. There is also a website www.difficultchild.com. It will give you the parenting tools you need to help him. I think looking to see if he is being successful at auditory processing (as distinct from a hearing test) is important.

[bai]

Thank you. Will find the book and trying to schedule a hearing evaluation.

[Anonymous]

To OP, I think a hearing test is valuable as well. So I wouldn't skip this step.

[Anonymous]

My 5-year-old is loud and often ignores speech directed to her. She often acts like she's deaf but in fact she has language processing issues (as well as sensory processing issues, that's why she's loud). She hears but doesn't understand some of the language, so she either doesn't respond or asks seemingly stupid questions. E.g., we may see a convertible and say: "look, a convertible! It's green!" She might say: "What is green?" She can't relate the "it" in a sentence to the noun in the immediately preceding sentence. We encourage our daughter to ask for explanations when she doesn't grasp something and we try to be very patient about explaining the meaning of words or sentences no matter how obvious it seems to us.