ADHD

adhd - ADHD treatment is a systems, multi-faceted process for the whole family

The vast majority of the learning problems that I see are nothing more than academic, learning phobias that use up all of the child's attentional resources. Thus, these children have little mental power to do the actual academic task. The more emotionally distressed they become, the more this uses up their attentional resources, the more poorly they perform, the more upset they get, which in turn uses up even more attentional resources, and so on. This concept is explained in more detail in my books, ADHD: a Path to Success and ADHD: Drug-free and Doin' Fine.

Once the negative affect is extinguished from the academic cues there is usually an immediate, marked increase in performance and an increased ongoing ability to acquire academic skills more rapidly.

How to use WebCAER to extinguish learning blocks/disabilities

When you watch a child struggle with reading out loud, doing math problems, or writing an essay you often see many manifestations of their emotional arousal ,such as head bobbing, legs wiggling, grunting, contorted faces, verbal complaints, anger and frustration. The underlying physical experience of these behaviors uses the vast majority of the child's attention and intelligence, which in turn keeps them from performing the academic task effectively.

When they are doing something academic, like reading, and you see some of these behavioral manifestations of the emotions, ask them to notice what it feels like in their chest, stomach and face while they continue reading. After a few minutes, stop them and have them think about those feelings in their body as they do WebCAER. Depending on the age of the child, have them continue doing WebCAER for 10 to 20 minutes as they think about these feelings. Alternate between the academic task and WebCAER until the task no longer causes any negative emotional arousal.