Q
My 13-year-old has ADHD and CAPD. She has a great deal of trouble with words and is constantly confusing them. For instance, one of her classmates recently lost a great deal of weight. I told her I thought that going from 165 lbs. to 107 lbs. was quite an accomplishment. She responded by saying that the girl needed to watch it because she would have to start back on her diet. I had to explain that 107 was smaller than 165, and that losing weight meant to take it off, not put it on. Months, days, weeks, and years are really just words to her because she has no concept of what they really represent. We have worked on this for so long. She is an excellent student and she is a member of the Junior National Honor Society, but we continually struggle with things like this. Any suggestions?
A
Try using a vertical number line for concepts of quantity. Color coding helps, too. For example, start with numbers written in blue, change to green at 100, to yellow at 150, and to red at 200. You can designate the colors at smaller or larger units as needed. Having her verbalize size differences will also help (e.g., "150 is more than 100; 150 is less than 200). You can use this same strategy for anything that occurs in a sequence. For more ideas, have a look at Nancy Bley and Carol Thornton's book, Teaching Mathematics to Students with Learning Disabilities.