ADD and memory problems

My very intelligent son has ADD. He is now in his freshman year at a prestigious university. (Parson me for bragging.) One of the issues he struggles with, however, is his memory. He's taking Latin right now, which requires a great deal of memorizing. He says he's having trouble learning charts of different tenses, etc. Anybody have any suggestions for how he can best work around his memory issues on something like this task? I said maybe he could break it up into smaller parts, learn those, and then take a bit of time away before going back.....Is that a good suggestion? Thanks a lot!

Please remember that ADD/ADHD can be worked with! People who have it are NOT dumb!

Your suggestion is a good one. I am currently in college and when I need to remember a large amount of info I write down what I need to know on index cards. Then I go through the index cards five at a time. I do the same five cards over and over again until I've got them down then I move on the the next five- once I've got the next five I GO BACK to the first five and review them. I repeat this process until I've learned everything. If the material is really complicated I do only three cards at a time.This is time consuming but it works.

Those are great suggestions!! Im gonna do that 4 my tests!

I have a math quiz Wed! Same day as my Eng presentation!! And then I have a math unit test this Friday!!

Plus I have Geography! And History 2!!

Its cr-crazy!

Maybe, he can like summarize notes, and like post them on his wall, like study them when he wakes up and before he goes 2 bed...

Hopefully one of our suggestions helps him!

I wish him all the best of luck!!

Perhaps also include a small tape recorder,such as a micro casset recorder. He can take that with him and record the instructor's lessons,be sure to carry enough of the casset tapes and set the machine to run on 1.2cm to have more record time. The summerization notes are a good idea,and work for me. I hope this helps.

Your idea is a great idea 2!!!

Sometimes my husband will say don't you remember we talked about that or you said this. I am clueless most of the time. Wow do I have early onset dementia.? I am not that old. I would love to get my RN Degree but am fearful that I would not be able to remember the information.

I did try note cards a few years ago when I took a course. It helped some. I can remember certain information and other information is a blur. Why is this?

The key is to keep reviewing. What I do is the first time I do a run through I look at the answer and think about it for a few seconds. The second time I do not look at the answer right away- I try to remember the answer- I really search my brain for a clue. If I do not know it I look at the answer and think about it some more- I try to find something in the answer that makes sense. Sometimes it is just one word of the answer that I need to remember in order to remeber the whole answer. Sometimes reversing the way you do the cards helps too- for instance once you feel you have the cards down try reading the answers and remembering the questions. Also once you have the questions down mix them all up- this helps move the cards out of the original context of learning. All I can say is these techniques got me through abnormal psych and classical mythology with A's!! Good luck

In my own life, I've found that I have a hard time memorizing stuff that I don't care about.

"Distractability" is a negative symptom that doesn't speak to the real issue. ADD ADHD people can stay high focused but on stuff that is a good match for their interests.

Force them to memorize stuff they don't care about and the heart takes them in the direction they do care about.

It comes down to realizing that one's heart drives life, not society's plan for us.

I found hearing it, seeing it, saying it works for me.
Some stuff is easier if said, while other stuff needs to be seen.
I got through using the pattern of writing some thing down while saying it.
This requires different parts of the brain...

These days, a digital audio recorder is the way to go. Smaller, more memory, built-in USB to transfer files to a computer that can be managed in iTunes (or whatever).

Sometimes it's a good idea to ask permission to record lectures, though.