Imagine arriving home one late afternoon to find this message waiting for you concerning your son Johnny! Instead of focusing on end of work day concerns and dinner preparation, you as a parent must now focus on what may be going on with Johnny in the classroom. You already know that reading has been a learning challenge for your elementary age son, but you have allowed yourself to believe that the extra reading time he invests nightly will pay real dividends. Now, there is a suggestion that an additional problem may be interfering with his learning and work completion in the classroom. Yes, you are aware of ADHD, but not to the extent of feeling well informed about this frequently diagnosed disorder.

When you finally get a chance to talk to the classroom teacher, you learn that Johnny has developed a problem with work production due to frequent off-task behavior. His teacher describes him as being too social and often more interested in other activities going on around him. Not only is he failing to get all his class work completed, but he is also showing a concerning tendency to turn in half finished work assignments. Instead of asking for help or spending more time on the work he finds difficult, he appears to be an unfocused daydreamer who uses his work time inefficiently. The painful outcome of this behavior is represented by a steady decline in his grade level functioning.

Johnny