Saturday 31 July 2010

Is There a Link Between ADD and Kinesthetic Learners?


I am convinced my daughter has ADD. However, ADD is very poorly understood in the UK. I was referred to the Adolescent Mental Health Unit when I mentioned ADD to my doctor. The psychiatrist discounted ADD because she didn't demonstrate an attention difficulty at school despite learning very little. Anyone with a good understanding of ADD knows that it is not about attention but more about being Distractable, Impulsive and Sensation Seeking. She was given a provisional diagnosis of ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder).

Anya has a very unsual learning style which I have finally identified as being Kinesthetic. Kinesthetic learners:
- like to be active whilst learning.
- Like to move and fidget
- Do not enjoy watching presentations
- Do not enjoy listening to presentations
- Touch manipulate and try things
- Use gestures when speaking
- Enjoy moving to music

I don't think this learning style is accommodated at all in school and may be the link between Anya's difficulty learning at school. Only 5% of the population are Kinesthetic Learners and their style of learning would be very disruptive in class.

I have been reading an article by Association for Comprehensive NeuroTherapy about a possible link between ADD and Kinesthetic Learning. The article discussed how children may have been misdiagnosed with ADD and ADHD and simply be Kinesthetic Learners. I also wonder if all people diagnosed with ADD and ADHD are Kinesthetic Learners?

Find out your child's learning style with the Learning Style Survey

2 comments:

  1. There are lot of differences between the ADD and kinesthetic learners. As I am also getting same thing what I was expecting.

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  2. I totally understand what you mean by schools not accommodating kinaesthetic learning. My 13 yr old son (who has autism and adhd) is also very kinaesthetic in his learning style, and even though I have homeschooled him for the past 2 yrs, I still struggle to engage him. It gets more difficult as he gets older to adjust curriculum to this learning style as there is just the expectation that they can read, cognitively process and write (or type) ever increasing amounts of information as they get older.

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