ADHD Learning aids for kids w/ ADHD

[cjnolet]

I'm quite appalled by my experience in grade school. Quite specifically, I had to adapt in an environment where I was unable to learn the necessary material in class and, thus, I had to learn how to learn on my own. Things get missed- I end up growing up not having the intricate details of some body of knowledge that seems common to most neurotypical individuals.

My mindfulness training has also been really getting me questioning both the effect and overarching need of technology on the lives of humans. Specifically, I've been immersed in the field of artificial intelligence and it quite scares me seeing some of the research that's going on as well as products that are being developed.

Last year,I attempted a startup to build an app to help crowds communicate with DJs in clubs. I wanted to allow the DJ to reach out into the crowd's musical taste profiles to be able to better customize their experience without having to take hours of trying songs out to see what sticks. In this experience, I learned a pretty harsh lesson- the real competition for app developers today is that there's a limiting resource, the human attention span, and a seemingly unending supply of applications to carve up that limited resource. As a result, software companies that build "apps" seem to be largely marketing and competing for your distractability rather than really solving an important problem.

Philosophically, this reminds me of latent theories put forth by Aldous Huxley back in the 50's when he wrote Brave New World. You know, a magical drug that the mass of society gets addicted to in order for them to experience true happiness, all the while ignoring the overtaking of a tyrannical central authority (the government, in the case of the book) who is gaining more control as a result of their inattentiveness. Does this sound like social media? I think so...

Anyways, this type of philosophy has prompted me to focus on inventions that both keep us human and get the hell out of our way. In terms of computing, we often call such systems "pervasive" or "ubiquitous" systems. But that's not my only goal. I find myself playing board games more often and attempting to have real lasting conversations in order to connect with people. Perhaps it's because of my extraverted personality, but it's also because, as humans, we have an instinctive need to socialize and connect with other humans and social media, with its often both spatially and temporally decoupled style of communication, doesn't satisfy that need.

I've started by created playing-card sized durable cards that have inspirational quotes on them from very famous and respectable individuals that empower and remind us, not only of how human we are, but how great we can be! The idea is that we can share that inspiration with others in person. When we notice someone is struggling or needs some inspiration to get through a hard time. Or maybe they are being challenged and need a little extra boost to remind them that they can persevere.

My hypothesis is that sometimes that's all we need from someone- just to be aware that they care and that we are capable, in order to accomplish some pretty magnificent feats.

I've also naturally always loved playing board games over video games. Especially as my kids grow, I don't want their faces in video games all the time. I'm not referring to dungeons and dragons style games either, but simple roll the dice and do something stimulating types of games are really fun and get people connecting together in person. Laughing, sharing amusement, playing with each other- that's what humans require in their socialization needs.

So, now that I've explained a problem (ADHD kids and education) and my philosophy behind inventions and the criteria they should strive to meet, I've come to the conclusion that a good tool for helping kids to fill in the gaps that they are missing in the public school system (especially now that common core guarantees the material is consistent across so many school districts), would be to build games and other stimulating tools to help these children (like my kids, for instance) who are struggling in subject. First, I think the tool should teach kids how learn since they likely will be missing a lot things in their classes. I also think the tool should teach kids where to find the information they are seeking, and i think it should be stimulating enough so that they get excited about the material, as I was able to teach myself to do, and really let their imaginations soar.

I feel like it's irrelevant how and why these children have the diagnosis. Rather, what's more important is focusing on how to make it useful for them, from an early age, so that we can be fostering more DaVincis, Edisons, Einsteins, and Franklins in the world rather than shunning them to a live of resentment and regret by living their lives feeling disconnected and not accepted.

Am I far out here or does this seem like a reasonable thing? Sometimes it helps to validate crazy thoughts because I might have reached a linear pathway in my non-linear thought process.

[HadEnuf]

First, an observation with a latent pun: just because your thought process meanders doesn't make it non-linear, if it progresses ultimately from point to point. Unless branches and merges are removed, straightening the path only transforms it from linear to RECTI-linear—like the final segment of the human gut. (*evil grin*)

Everyone has their unique genius, whether the world respects it or not: quashing its emergence because one does not reach that genius in a particular way is the world's shame, not the one's shame, never mind that the world tries to shift the burden as if it did nothing.

I have seen social genius even in those labeled “retarded”, often because they failed to acquire an institutionally-favored form of stupidity (of which so many are available to the neurotypical).

There is much in our social environment to favor reactions to “other” that no longer aid us, even if it might have been different when we were living in scattered groups of a few dozen. Because the world in which much of the corpus of human social knowledge evolved does not truly exist, any longer, removing these products of unconscious training in a world where their absence is no longer disastrous can produce results that appear miraculous.

(Yes, I am meandering—to a definite point, so cue the pun from earlier.)

What happens in our educational system is simply a microcosm of the larger case, because of its focus on developing an obedient and subservient worker class. (This really was the original, deliberate focus of the Prussian system we have embraced for generations, in not only the U.S.A., but in many nations influenced by European colonialism.)

The trick may be to find some way to combat the excess of self-deprecation (really, self-shaming, as it is taught prevalently) that amounts to more than “warm fuzzies”.

Perhaps the best might be to provide opportunities for our young to “walk the talk”, as early as possible, but with less investment in establishing a pecking order and more openness to a healthy rate of growth-inducing (rather than destructive) disruption than is apparent in many, long-standing, “leadership” programs (e.g., paramilitary “scouting”).

Comes down to it, much of the frustration associated with being “different” is nothing more or less than a symptom of society's addiction to regimentation: it simply found the wrong form of organization, first—this applies no less to learning than to any other social function.

[iBusyBrain]

I think you're spot on! Yes--attention spans are very small, and getting smaller by the day I would say. We also don't have to look far to find a engaging and stimulating manner in which capture a majority of ADHDers and their attention...the video game industry...and dopamine causing effects specifically engineered into the design of such games today. Make learning and working just as fun! Incorporate trophy achievements into learning accomplishments for example. You certainly have great ideas.