DD 8 cannot concentrate and talks all the time

[Paleninteresting]

My DD is absolutely lovely, bright and loving. Unfortunately she will not focus and spends her time moving on to the next thing constantly. This may be one of the reasons she has not developed core spelling and maths abilities in line with her age. She has been assessed as being four years ahead with comprehension and analysis abilities and continues to struggle with fundamental skills.
We are getting her extra tuition for these issues but getting her to concentrate and focus may be the core need. She is not hyperactive and will focus on films and when I read to her.
Any suggestions appreciated

Inattentive ADD? My dd was diagnosed with this recently aged 12. Was told previously by teachers "x is too smart to have ADD". Wishing I had gone with my gut and seen a Dr earlier.
She can hyper focus on things like books. Videogamea and TV but ask her to go brush her teeth and 20 mins later she's still cuddling with something she found on the way to the bathroom.

Cuddling= fiddling!

Thanks Blue, have you found anything that helps?

Well, it's still v new and still finding our way- she's currently trialling some medications but none seem to be making a difference.
I find I need to keep bringing her back to task, or set a timer for a few minutes and encourage her to try to focus til the timer ends. I'll gradually increase the time but it's frustrating for everyone.
Her school put an individual plan in place with things like giving her homeworks in broken down, written format. Listening to music during individual work sessions. We are going to try both at home too.
I'm mostly focusing on what she can do well as her self esteem was plummeting as she was getting in trouble do much in school for disorganisation.

I could imagine that's tough with someone of 12. Having a perspective of this could be an issue, helps when I reminded her to wash the toothpaste off her face for the fith time this morning. We are both frustrated and when I try to keep her on task she becomes v cross and wanted to slap my face the other day (hence the mumsnet post). I have friends in CAMHS so I am going to ask about strategies. I'm going to avoid GP services at the moment as she has a lot going on with extra tuition and yes, like you going to try the strengths based approach.
Would be willing to share their perspective if that helps?

you could try looking at mindfulness for children

Thank you lovely, in will look into that.

Non-verbal learning disorder? I ask because the "ahead in certain verbal stuff, behind in other stuff" is very much symptomatic, even potentially diagnostic.

Thank you womb. Never heard of that. Can you reccomednation a key writer to look at?

Reccomend oopps

Nonverbal learning difficulties occurred to me too. It is a proper syndrome that can be found in people with particular brain injuries but other people can just have it. What it means is that some people have normal or above normal verbal skills and terrible nonverbal skills. As a result, often the way they make sense of the world is to sort of give a non stop running commentary. Attention is also poor I think. It's been years since I read about it so it might be worth a Google to see if other symptoms fit. I may well have forgotten key elements.

This sounds pretty much like my dd who is 6 and has just started year 2. We have wondered if she has ADD, but her teacher from year 1 was adamant she hasn't. We also took her to a gp who just rang the school. So we have just left it. But during the summer holidays I found her really hard work. Constantly having to tell her to do something as simple as getting dressed, that would take her ages to do because she was too busy messing with something else. So far things have been OK at school until today, apparently she didn't finish her work in time and so was sent to another class. She still didn't finish her work so tomorrow she misses her play time. When I asked her why she hadn't finished she said it was because she was thinking about where the sentences and words should go on the paper. I feel like I want to bring up the issue of ADD again because my husband has it, but I just feel it will be shrugged off again. Does anyone have any good advice as to what we can do?

this all sounds very familiar, the constant having to tell DD1 (6) to do things, or getting "lost" in the middle of doing something. I suspect ADD, the inattentive type as it's hard to keep her on task, She is just about keeping up at school, but she is working with 40% of her attention, probably. It's hard to stay patient when you've told her 5 times to put the toothbrush in her mouth rather than waving it around, running off at tangents all the time. Hard to remember that she isn't doing it on purpose - she is genuinely surprised that I am cross, poor love

Evening all, I have a book reccomendation for us. Understanding ADHD by Christopher Green. My pals called what my daughter is doing 'age appropriate obstinance' which made me snort. Is there such a thing for the over 40s?
Apparently clear boundaries, timetables, visual cues, lots of praise, minimal choices, clear instructions are all advised. Whether there is a diagnosis or not. I do most of that but when things are busy they soon drop off and her distracted behaviour reappears. Sometimes I think she is just being 7 but because we are so busy it feel more amplified.
Flowers to all whose mornings are fraught with constant reminders.

"apparently she didn't finish her work in time and so was sent to another class. She still didn't finish her work so tomorrow she misses her play time. When I asked her why she hadn't finished she said it was because she was thinking about where the sentences and words should go on the paper"

My 6.5 yr old DS was recently evaluated and has visual-spatial processing issues. With perfectly normal intelligence, it can have a sort of global effect on things, including fundamental academic and social skills and also with attention.

we just got the teacher form back and it's clear that DD's issues are all attention/organisation based. So we'll see what happens next