can organization be taught?

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atinoak
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-30-2007
can organization be taught?
2
 Sun, 04-12-2009 - 8:05am
Our OT said it can, but I would think it would be difficult. Certain tasks may be easy to teach them but I think you can't change the way a brain works.
thoughts?
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sabrtooth
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Registered: 12-03-1999
In reply to: atinoak
can organization be taught?
 Sun, 04-12-2009 - 7:31pm
You can TEACH an ADDer anything, question is, will it stick. I'd say if s/he is 15/16-maybe; 9/10-not so much. Many ADDers, especially boys, have an emotional, conceptual age that runs about 3 years behind their physical age. So you basically have to wait for them to catch up. Even then, if they have significant Executive Dysfunction, maybe never. My 27yo is TERMINALLY disorganized. She is gainfully, even successfully employed. She functions, but like a strip of flypaper. Notes are stuck all over her. She would lose her a** if it wasn't attached. Her car looks like it's been thru a blender, and after having paid it off JUST LAST OCT, has now blown the engine. And that's even with DH doing as much of the periodic maintainence (oil changes, brakes, etc) as he can. Which is whenever she brings it over in the DAYTIME for more than 15 minutes, & it is not 40 below outside.
meganmca
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
In reply to: atinoak
can organization be taught?
 Mon, 04-13-2009 - 11:15am

I usually think of it as teaching him the organizational techniques I learned a lot later in life. Basically, it depends on what you mean--he won't ever "just pick it up", but he can be explicitly taught stuff, yes. Can't change how the brain works overall, but you can give it the best structure to support how it DOES work, if that makes sense?

Though the question that comes to mind is something like: And when is something about these kids NOT difficult? ;}

Megan
Megan
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