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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
My 12 year old son was diagnosed with moderate to severe mixed-type ADHD and specific math and fine motor learning disorders at 10 and has an extremely low processing speed without meds.

He takes 27mg of generic Concerta (extended release) and it works like a charm. You should consult with a psychiatrist to tweak the dose. Perhaps your child needs a little more.

Stixrud evaluated him with the full neuropsych, 8 hours of testing over two days, comprising of a WISC V (IQ) test and specific testing to identify ADHD and other issues. Some of his IQ subscores were in the gifted range, but others were well below normal, [b]like processing speed and working memory[/b].

His math recall was significantly affected (not so much spelling, as he is a voracious reader). He eats and does things excruciatingly slowly when not on meds, and has significant oral, sensory and fine motor issues.

I was told by the psychologist at Stixrud that all these issues are linked.

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Have you done anything to help with working memory?  
DId processing speed improve with Concerta or is he working on strategies to improve? 
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I didn't do anything specifically to help with memory or speed, since these brain functions were so altered that I felt they could not be improved without medication. It would be like asking a myopic person to train herself to see without glasses.

BUT - since I'm a Tiger parent at heart, we have always done academic work with DS since he was little, as well as writing exercises and OT for his fine motor skills. None of this was visible at school, because he was so incredibly inattentive and slow.

Then when he started meds, all that prior work paid off and he was instantly more responsible and could use the study skills he had been honing for years. It's just that he needed the meds for all of this to reveal itself. We had been told that usually kids need a few years to develop study skills after starting ADHD meds, since they come with a developmental lag for those skills, but for him that was not the case, since I had trained him for ages without realizing it. That was when he switched from regular math class, where he had been struggling, to an advanced math class, and got straight As throughout his 6th grade year.

An interesting thing about the processing speed: out of curiosity, I had him tested for IQ before and after meds. The processing speed was significantly improved, which the psychologist told us was to be expected.

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