my almost 10yr old ADHD son is still reversing some letters and numbers consistently.
He’s had neuropsyche testing done and been evaluated and seen by OT. OT said said his handwriting mechanics are good and worked with him on slowing down to get it right. Neuropsych said it’s part of his ADHD that impulse control leads to just writing the reversal and “Worrying about it later”
his new school is a bit more strict. If he spells a spelling word correct but he has a reversal, it’s marked wrong.
He’s in 4th grade and getting letter grades and I’m terrified to see what comes from this. I plan on talking to the teacher but I’m just not even sure what to say? In 4th grade is it fair to say he needs to stop the reversals or he’s getting a bad grade? He really seems to not be able to help it sometimes and gets frustrated and eventually stops correcting it.
help?
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Willowbee37
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Thank you for contacting CHADD National Resource Center on ADHD. Have you had him tested for dyslexia? eida.org/ Sometimes, learning disabilities and ADHD can occur together, which might make things more challenging. It could be a good idea to talk to his doctor about this. In the meantime, here are some articles that might be helpful. chadd.org/attention-article... , chadd.org/adhd-weekly/paren... and chadd.org/attention-article...
Hopefully these articles are helpful, if there is anything you need, please let me know.
Thanks for bring this to the group. I am not sure if your son has tried medications to "slow" him down. ADHD was described to me as a Ferrarri on roller skates. For us finding the best medication, while working with a child psychiatrist was life changing. They can also provide a consultation to discuss what think is best.
We could never get our son to "re-read" things we know he did to quickly.
Have you considered him working on typing and not handwriting? This may help since he could be altered to wrote the word incorrectly. But if you are asking about a spelling test, it would be considered wrong with a reversal.
My 7th grader is also still reversing letters, though I've never noticed her reverse numbers. I approached the school about testing her for dysgraphia and/or dyslexia, right at the end of the last school year. I didn't get too far. The teachers say that they don't notice it, or not frequently, and she is able to write and extract ideas from text/create correct and coherent sentences when she uses a computer. Her handwriting is atrocious but I suspect at least some of that is due to rushing like your son. She can write more neatly when she wants to and slows down- for example on an art project or something done for pleasure - but it's still more childish looking than I think most 7th graders write. We agreed that the teachers would watch her closely this first quarter and evaluate whether there is a need to test. While the flipped letters aren't causing her as much of a problem as it sounds like it's causing your son, it concerns me that it may be the only visible sign of a problem making school harder for her than it needs to be. No real advice here I guess, just letting you know you aren't alone.
You should read up on dyslexia before talking to the school again. There is a lot more to it than just flipping letters/numbers. Some smart kids have learned how to mask it by using their other strengths. It isn't until they get in more demanding environments that it shows. My daughter's teachers didn't notice it and her testing indicated that it was fairly moderate as opposed to her mild ADHD. Her IQ was in the top 8%, so she hides it well most of the time.
I agree with the recommendations to have him tested for a learning disability such as dyslexia. My daughter has ADHD, Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. It is not uncommon for those things to coexist. In fact, I was readding the ADDitude magaize this morning and they have a table indicating 21% of kids with ADHD also have a learning disability.
As for the grades, I think they should mark the misspellings wrong in ELA, but you should advocate for the teachers to let him correct his mistakes for partial credit. I don't think he should be penalized in other subjects for misspelled words because he should be testing on his knowledge of those subjects. However, it might benefit your son if the other teachers would circle the misspelled words and ask him to correct it giving him an opportunity to learn from his mistakes.
I would request a doctors note for this accommodation to have those not marked wrong, but have the teacher mark them for him to correct. As a teacher, I would usually mark mistakes then if they correct them, they can get half credit. This is typical for most teacher situations. You can ask for the accommodation to be added on the IEP/504. The OT or neuropsychologist should be able to get you the note for what he is working on.
My son is 6 in first grade and does this and I was wondering why. I keep wondering “is this is dad’s Dyslexia gene, or what the?” He read “saw,” it is “was”, struggling a lot with reading. He’s flipped 6 and 9, and a handful of letters that look similar since he was in Pre-k 3 amd prek 4 we finally got it down, now he’s worse off. Your post makes me feel a little less stressed but know I cannot make him do work at home if he doesn’t want to. Thank you for sharing.
That interesting cause my son’s dad got diagnosed with dyslexia when he was young too. His old school wouldn’t formally test. We had a neuropsych eval and was didn’t get diagnosed with it but the way he writes still is not adding up. Very frustrating!
yeah I’m kind of wondering if my son just has a dyslexia and ADHD because a lot of the symptoms or issues that he experienced with dyslexia or similar as ADHD that’s from my cousins perspective whose son has dyslexia. When she explained to me that was ADHD my husband hates my novels. My husband hates written communication. I love it. And so I don’t know. I don’t think people really understand how to test it. Did the neuropsych eval have info on executive function, working memory, or short term memory?
Does your son struggle with reading at all? Mine is struggling with phonological awareness, reading, and writing. I never had problems with reading and writing comprehension. The site words are very hard for him.
My daughter is also in 4th grade. In previous grades, she has always struggled with handwriting quality and reversing letters. In 1st grade, she reversed letters get often, but by the end of 3rd grade it was occurring ⅒ as often.• She is left-handed, and I have heard that people who are left-handed are more likely to reverse letters, but I don't know whether that has been scientifically proven or not. I think that she is actually ambitious but favors her left, because she broke her left arm a week before school started this year, and she was able to switch to writing right-handed within the first week of school. (She even said that by her third day of class, her handwriting was more neat with her right hand than with her left.)
My daughter is also artistic, and can prob draw better than most kids her age. So, by contrast, it seems odd that her handwriting is as messy as it is. Her older brother's handwriting quality depends on how fast he's writing...more neat when he takes his time, and much more messy when he rushes. My daughter's handwriting doesn't seem to be much affected by how fast she is writing.
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My older brother's handwriting has always been messy. He doesn't reverse letters, but his handwriting didn't really progress in neatness past elementary school. He probably has dysgraphia.
However, he probably also has a genius IQ. He was 2 years ahead of the best of his peers in math in Jr High and High School. He has been working as a computer programmer since the late '90s.
Maybe this was our mom's attempt to reassure him, but as we were growing up she would say a few times each school year that "a lot of really smart people have really bad handwriting", or sometimes she'd say it like "there is often an inverse relationship between intelligence and handwriting quality". (My own handwriting is probably moderately worse than the typical male, so I took. By contrast, both of our parents have remarkably beautiful handwriting.)
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My own handwriting reversal didn't show up until algebra. But I think that the number reversal actually happened in my head.
My own ADHD includes working memory issues. Thankfully, my algebra teacher in high school noticed that I wasn't writing down all the steps and often making little mistakes. He taught me to take my time and write out each step, not to try to combine steps in my head. One of the issues I would experience was reversing 2s and 5s if I did the problem in my head, but if I made the effort to "show my work", then I wouldn't experience that error or the other frequent errors that I would make. My math grade became consistently good after taking that teacher's advice. (I even worked as a math tutor for a couple of years in my 20s, and taught other struggling math students to also show their work in order to improve their performance.)
However, I continued to struggle with writing, sometimes missing whole words, and sometimes omitting whole phrases, or I was reversing phrases between what I thought and what I wrote. That's because my mind would not retain the things that I was thinking long enough to write them out. This was entirely due to working memory issues. (The same word/phrase shifting would frequently occur when I was reading, which I thought was dyslexia up until it improved with ADHD medication.)
• Despite trying dozens of things (tips, tricks, techniques, exercises, supplements, etc) over a 30 year span, my working memory didn't improve. Then, I got diagnosed with ADHD at 45 years old, and tried ADHD medication for the first time. Adderall improved my working memory a bit, but then I switched to Strattera* and it improved a lot more...to be almost as good as the average person's. I now spend a lot less time going back over my writing to make sure that I didn't leave out any words or phrases.
*(For kids, Qelbree is now recommended over Strattera as a non-stimulant. They are both the same type of medication, but Qelbree has less chance of side effects and is reported to take less time to take effect...just days instead of the weeks that it takes Strattera to reach full effect.)
So, at least in my experience, ADHD medication can have a positive effect on writing.
If your son is not taking medication, then I highly encourage you to consider trying it.
If he is on a stimulant and his handwriting hasn't improved, then you might consider a non-stimulant to see if it makes a difference. (Note: always have medication discussions with a doctor, when considering options.)
Interesting! So my son is also an artist. Can draw beautifully but handwriting is a mess! He’s on vyvanse and that does work well for him. It’s HELPED with the writing in the sense it slows him down but it’s still not good. I’m not sure what gives with that. Not sure I’ll ever get it figured out for him either. He’s done occupational therapy and had tutoring and done neuropsych testing and we’ve come up empty handed.
One other thing that I thought of...maybe your son would benefit from a writing "cheat sheet" with examples of words with the letters turned the right way. (Especially for any words that he reverses letters in frequently.)• This occurred to me because several times in my life I've heard it recommended to keep a list of commonly misspelled words. (This was advice given to businessmen for decades.)
• When I was in college, some professors would let students bring a "formula sheet" to exams, so we could see them and make less memory based errors...to help prevent omitting or changing parts of the formulas.
If a "cheat sheet" could be acceptable for working professionals and college students, then why not for a struggling 4th grader? (Just not for spelling tests, because that would defeat the purpose of the test.)
My son is 10 in 5th grade. He was diagnosed by a doctor in 2nd grade with ADHD but has never taken medication because his father won’t agree sadly. It’s interesting though because his public school at the time (now he’s in a private Catholic school) provided what seemed like a long and thorough evaluation, which ruled out all other diagnoses such as dyslexia. Although he’s always mixed up his letters a bit, lately I have been seeing it really prevalent. His writing does some backwards letters, mixing up b and d, forgetting letters in words he should know, and reversing placement of letters in words. His handwriting is pretty bad too, but he is really excellent at drawing! It does seem like he’s rushing through his writing more, but I also notice he is having this issue when reading sometimes. I’m not sure what to do at this point because I don’t think his current school will give an evaluation, plus I don’t know what good it would really do if he did have this diagnosis… Is there a way to help dyslexia? And is it possible for dyslexia to appear later in age, or somehow they missed it during his original evaluation?
This is super interesting cause my son is an artist. Can draw beautifully but writing is a mess! It’s likely dysgraphia and can coincide with ADHD. There’s not a whole lot to help though but in your case the adhd medication could. My son is already on it and it doesn’t help. So I’m not sure what gives on our end.
You might be right about dysgraphia. The part about "difficulty turning their thoughts into written language" really rings true because I always have to restructure his verbal reply to a homework question into something he can write down that makes sense. Otherwise, he seems lost how to answer. But also seeing dyslexia happens in his reading, and he struggles with some letter flipping when he reads aloud. Apparently these learning difficulties can all co-exist with ADHD... Also worth mentioning, my husband (not son's father) has always struggled with dyslexia, he went to a special school and never took medication, but basically he has always gravitated toward more physical work.... That was his workaround.
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