How to Help Kids with ADHD Focus Better and Learn More Easily

Being a parent of kids with ADHD can be hard. They are often unfocused, unmotivated, obstinate, and falling behind in school… but they are also often abundantly energetic and creative. ADHD doesn’t have to be a diagnosis that determines how your child is able to learn and function in school or everyday life. It can be the superpower that drives them, and with the right tools they can learn how to focus and learn more easily!

At LearningRx, we believe in getting to the learner beneath the labels. Instead of accommodating or explaining away learning struggles, we target the underlying causes so we give everyone the chance to succeed!

What Are the Common (or Not-So-Well-Known) Symptoms of ADHD?

When you think of ADHD, you probably picture a kid who is impulsive, always moving, and struggles to focus in school. While this is accurate in many cases, there is a diverse spectrum of ways ADHD can present in individual cases. In general, ADHD diagnoses fall into one of these categories:

• Hyperactivity and Impulsivity (which exhibits in trouble sitting still, playing quietly, talking excessively, blurting out answers out of turn, interrupting or intruding, and other high energy habits)
• Inattention (which exhibits as a lack of attention to detail, trouble focusing in school, struggling to follow instructions, poor organization or planning skills, forgetfulness, aversion to tasks that require mental focus, and seeming to not listen when spoken to)
• Combined (which includes a mixture of both of the above forms)

What Causes ADHD?

Research shows that weaknesses in working memory may be one of the primary underlying causes of ADHD. Working memory is like your mental bucket. It impacts your ability hold onto info long enough to either use it or store it in long-term memory.

For kids with ADHD, this working memory deficit along with struggles with attention make it harder for them to focus and learn. Working memory weaknesses look like:

• Constantly forgetting what you’ve just been told
• Needing to reread something multiple times to understand what it says
• Poor task resilience when things feel hard
• Trouble with planning and organization, constantly losing or misplacing things
• Struggles with test-taking, reading and math, since these tasks require

As you can see, this list closely mirrors the symptoms list above for individuals with ADHD. Even though attention skills are critical for individuals with ADHD, that’s not the only factor. Working memory is another essential place to look.

How Can You Strengthen Focus & Learning Skills in Kids with ADHD?

The reality is that your child cannot learn to focus unless they have the cognitive skill capacity for these tasks. 

Every learner with ADHD has a unique cognitive profile. In fact, two people with ADHD could have trouble focusing for completely different reasons!

To deliver the right kind of ADHD help, we start with a Brain Skills Assessment. This allows us to identify the brain skills with the most room for growth in each client.

For learners with ADHD, a brain training plan could focus on specific attention skills, such as how to stay focused for long periods or how to avoid mid-task distractions. We can also work on strengthening skills like working memory, long-term memory, and mental processing speed, which can also be tied to ADHD.

This unique approach makes our program different and extremely effective for individuals of all ages and abilities, especially for kids with ADHD.

LearningRx Results for Adults and Kids with ADHD

Our approach to ADHD help is backed by multiple research studies. Plus, we have 35+ years of experience training clients with hyperactive ADHD, inattentive ADHD (formerly known as ADD), and combined ADHD.

Past clients with ADHD have seen improvements in cognitive skills, including an average gain of 3.2 years in sustained attention skills. Our clients have also reported significant improvements in other areas, including relationships with friends and family, oppositional behavior, and self-esteem.

All results vary and depend on many different factors. We’d love to talk with you about how brain training could help your kids with ADHD focus better and learn more easily!