ISSUE 2
OCTOBER 2003

This is The Story of Torrance
His parents, Raymond and Carol, coached him three hours a day, every weekday, for seven years. They spent weekends tailoring materials to fit the special needs of their “learning disabled” child who could not learn in school despite his high IQ. Their teamwork and total dedication paid off: Torrance achieved sterling results all the way from P4 to Secondary 4. Today he is a first-year media design student at Nanyang Polytechnic.

   Torrance was a very cute boy who started reading when he was a toddler. He loved reading science books. He loved drawing but disliked copying. He was never able to copy without making
mistakes. He was careless, easily distracted, fidgety and hopelessly disorganized in whatever he did. At times, he was impulsive and even argued with teachers.
   The most annoying traits are his short attention span and his inability to retain for long what he is taught. He is weak in sequencing, logic, comprehension and Chinese, but exceptionally good at IQ puzzles. While he is quite bright and creative in some areas, his inability to take instructions and copy from the board, and the constant loss of stationery, books and notices from school, so perplexed us that we were prompted to seek specialist help.
   Torrance was finally diagnosed in Primary 4 as a child with mixed developmental disorder with motor skill problem and traces of autism. Like many parents, we initially refused to accept his disability. Similarly, many teachers refused to accept or believe that he has a “real” problem. One of his form teachers said that if having a short attention span is ADD then half her class should also be labeled ADD. Teachers tend to believe that the main problem with the child is either discipline or attitude. Since Torrance was a quiet dreamer, rather than a disruptive ADHD type, most teachers just left him alone in his own world.
   We sympathize with teachers who have to teach and manage large classes of 40 pupils as well as handle other administrative duties. We also accept some teachers’ contention that they are not trained to teach/handle ADHD kids. That, however, does not help us at all. Our son seemed to be learning very little at school despite his high IQ.
   As we were unable to muster much help within the school system and since my child appeared not to learn in a classroom environment, my wife and I decided to take Torrance’s education into our own hands. It was a formidable task. We had to custom design lessons and coach him daily for up to 3 hours after school each day.    In other words, we were effectively doing home schooling. However Torrance had to spend another 5 to 6 hours in school every day so that he could qualify for the open exams (and the relevant certificates). Since he did well in the exams, his teachers did not bother with whether or not he did the assigned homework.
   Torrance works twice, if not three times, as hard as any “normal” child under our tutelage. Our efforts paid off. He scored Band 1’s from P4 to P6 and was in the EM1 stream. He scored A*s and As in his PSLE. He went on to Express science stream in secondary school.    Today he is a media design student at Nanyang Polytechnic.
The academic aspects of our son’s problem took up so much of our time and energy that we could not put as much effort as we would have liked with his social skill development. Torrance remains a loner who finds great difficulty working in a team. Hence, the new emphasis on teamwork and the fact that substantial weightage of the student’s grades now comes from daily assignments, project work and weekly test means that hard work under home tutelage, no matter how effective, is no longer sufficient to earn him very good grades.
   The already uneven playing field is now slanted even more against children with learning or other disabilities. We would like to share our experience and strategies in coaching our son for the benefit of other parents with ADD/ADHD kids.

Flash cards

• Print/write problems on palm-sized cards with
  solutions or answers on the reverse.
  
• Flash the cards to the child from time to time.
  
  
• From our experience, this method is especially useful for mathematics and helpful to those children with short-term memory.

Visual aids

• Let the child choose his favourite highlighters (the colours should appeal to him if they are to work for him) and use them to highlight the
  keywords or salient points. This will facilitate recall before and during examinations. Mind-mapping may also help.
  
• For younger, visual or kinesthetic children, we use objects which they can see and touch. For example, in maths, we use the model or unity method.
  
• To further assist the child and avoid tedium, do not insist on writing statements.
  
• For P5 and P6 students, allow them to use calculator (or help them with one) when doing long and difficult sums. After all, what we want them to focus on are the conceptual understanding and processing skills; the solutions will emerge naturally.
  Audio aids
  
• Play the child’s favourite light background music (not songs, lyrics may distract him). This may help to calm some hyperactive children.
  
• Record difficult texts or passages in cassettes and play them to the child before he sleeps and into his sleep. This is particularly useful for learning Mother Tongue. Research shows that this learning technique directed at the subconscious level may help some children who fail to concentrate during the day.

Chinese language

• My wife has been painstakingly coaching our son in Chinese. She taught him the way to analyze and memorize Chinese characters. This has, in turn, led to phrases, idioms and so on. From being a very weak learner, he progressed rapidly and was streamed into EM1 and studied higher Chinese. In 2001, Torrance scored an A in Chinese for his Sec 3 final exam. My wife put in endless effort to motivate him to learn Mandarin. We watched with our sons regularly Channel 8 serials, news, read Chinese newspapers, magazines and even joke books. We discussed issues in Mandarin.
  Structured learning
  
• Prepare tailored-made notes or summaries (or flash cards) to reinforce the weak areas.
  
• Teach according to the child’s ability. In my many years of tutoring experience, I have observed that many parents buy the most challenging assessment books in the hope that if their children can tackle the harder problems they would be able to score higher marks. However, when a child is constantly faced with difficult and apparently insurmountable tasks, the child will soon lose interest and may completely shut down.
  
• My suggestion is to give the child breaks. During the intervals, give them IQ questions or crack jokes. Break tasks into small bite-size pieces and instruct the child to proceed one bite at a time.
  

Exams and tests

• Under the existing system, the child must acquire reasonable accuracy and speed if he is to do
  well, hence it may be necessary to do assessment papers even if the child already understands the concepts. The quality, quantity and frequency of such practice papers depend on the aptitude of
  the child. The child should be briefed and the
  questions discussed before doing the assessments. Without proper input, what can we expect from
  the output?

• Learning the keyboard will train both the left and right brains. This may help some children to increase their level of concentration.
  

Meditation

• Learning yoga, tai-chi, aikido or other such meditative techniques will enhance the child’s concentration.

Get The Right Balance

   The extent of the nutritional or biological imbalance in the body is an important factor that will determine whether one can or cannot derive substantial benefits from Neural Feedback Therapy, said Dr Kenneth Kang who spoke at our monthly Parents Support Group meeting on 5 Jul 03.
   Dr Kang’s initial interest in the area relating to effects of nutritional imbalance came after he discovered that some people benefited greatly from the Neural Feedback Therapy, while others did not receive as much benefits.
   He stressed that the treatment of children with ADHD or other learning disorders must be done at the following four levels (in order of importance):

1. Attain a biological balance within the body through nutritional balance.
2. Apply the relevant therapies for the particular learning or other difficulties.
3. Educate the parents and children on how to better manage the difficulties encountered.
4. Change the environment which the child interacts with (e.g. school, society, etc.).

   To check the nutritional balance within the body, the following tests can be used: food allergy test, hair analysis testing, urine analysis, and blood analysis. Dr Kang’s experience is that hair analysis testing gave him the most useful data on the state of nutritional imbalance within a child with learning difficulties. Hair analysis testing help provide useful and accurate information of the nutritional problems (and even food allergies) encountered by the child over a period of time that may not be easily detected using blood or other forms of testing.
   Dr Kang discussed the hair analysis results of some children with learning difficulties during his sharing session. He noted the accumulation of such toxic metals like lead, mercury and copper in these children. The sources for these toxic metals could come from fish, seafood, Chinese medicine or the body’s inability to remove these toxic substances from the body. Some of the problems could also be created due to the lack or excess of certain substances such as calcium and magnesium.
   He then explained the effect of these metals in behaviours. Inadequate levels of calcium and magnesium in the body will result in the reduced ability of the child to handle stress and other problems. Too much calcium and/or magnesium in the body may retard the body’s metabolic rate and cause the child to be lethargic and lack of motivation. Excessive copper is also often found in children with reading difficulties and other related problems. Zinc deficiencies will results in white spots on the child’s fingernails. Zinc and magnesium are also essential for the detoxification of the body of various toxic substances. A lack of iron can cause a child to habitually bit his nail or eat other non-food items such as soil. Food allergies (to wheat, milk, etc.) may also cause other nutritional imbalance in the body.
   Those interested to know more about Neural Feedback Therapy can find more information on these web-sites: www.eegspectrum.com, www.eegresearch.com, www.eegassociates.org.
   The sharing session resulted in many parents asking various questions, including the question of the cost of a hair analysis. Dr Kang said that the standard rate was $180 but offered to give discounts to SPARK. Those interested can contact Dr Kang at 6823-5963. His office is at Spectrum Learning, 583 Orchard Road, #16-01/#17-01 The Forum, Singapore 238884.
   Dr Kenneth Kang, an educational psychologist specialising in Neural Feedback Therapy, is the Principal Consultant at Spectrum Learning. He has over 8 years experience in treating children (and adults) with ADHD, autism, seizures, conduct disorder, specific learning difficulties, minor traumatic brain injury and Down Syndrome, using non-drug and non-invasive techniques such as neural feedback therapy and nutritional support.

This summary of the talk by Dr Kang was reported by Lee Swee Huat.

Regulate your brain frequency to
improve attention span and memory

   Norman Tien, developer of MathemaKids, a primary school mathematics programme and presenter of the famous “Careless Mistakes Again” talk, was our guest speaker for Aug 2003.
According to Norman, the core symptoms of ADHD, like inattention, difficulty in regulating behaviours and emotions, and hyperactivity are strikingly similar to symptoms caused by disrupted sleep and sleep deprivation.
   Norman also believes that belief is actually more powerful than the effects of drugs as supported in experiments proving the “placebo effect”. He stated an experiment where people are actually given stimulants although told that they are given sleeping pills and vice versa. The net results is that the majority of the reported that the sleeping pills did work although they were actually given stimulants.
Norman indicated that people with ADHD often have internal dialogues with themselves and are frequent high-risk takers, which led them to be more successful in occupations such as inventors or entrepreneurs. He mentioned the case of Adam Khoo, a successful businessman in Singapore who was kicked out from school. Adam’s turning point was after attending the super-teen camp.
   Norman suggested that parents adopt a more positive approach to help their child better cope with the academic pressure in schools. For example, instead of saying that your child has failed in a particular exam, it is better to tell the child that he has not passed the exam yet. This sets the expectation that the child is able to pass the exam later.
   Norman said that the human brain is more active when a person sleeps. He highlighted that the following are the different brain frequencies:
• Delta (Sleep)
• Theta (Day-dream)
• Alpha (REM Sleep)
• Beta (Awake for logical thoughts/reasoning)
• Gamma & K-Complex (depression/anxiety)
   Norman mentioned that a short nap should not take more than 25 minutes so that the brain will not get into the delta stage where it is more difficult for a person to wake up. Each cycle of sleep will last about 1.5 to 2 hours depending on the individual (i.e. brain frequency changing from alpha, to theta, to delta, to theta and then to alpha). It is easy to wake up a person when he is in the alpha or theta stage.    Norman also mentioned that the optimal temperature for the
function of the brain is 19 degrees Centigrade.
   Norman mention that the brain of the average ADHD child is more often at the theta stage (which people practising yoga and meditation tries to achieve with some effort) than at the beta stage which is required for the brain to be more alert, pay attention and also make logical inference. The trick is thus to train the ADHD child to bring his brain frequency to the theta stage when concentration and logical thinking is required.
   Norman also mentions that a major cause why children make careless mistakes is due to a “lack of purpose” as seen from the child’s point of view. The purpose for not making careless mistakes must often be established first before the child is able to reduce the number of careless mistakes made.
   Norman also provides mathematics tuition to individuals ($280 for four 1.5 hour sessions) or students in group of up to 8 students.($160
for four 1.5 hour sessions. He can be contacted at normantien@pacific.net.sg or h/p: 9382-4681.
   During his mathematics tuition to individual students, Norman focus on developing and reinforcing positive “conditionings” that helps the child to develop better study habits and thoughts, and also to extinguish negative thoughts / conditioning that hinders the child in the process of learning. He recommends that students come for individual tuition first so that relevant “conditioning” can be reinforced before the student join the tuition on a group basis.

Norman Tien is a certified practitioner in Behavioural Change and Sleep Mgmt. He has trained many students, including those diagnosed with exam phobias and learning disorders to get “A” for their exams. He was also nominated in 2001 for the Singapore Innovation Award.