Exercise for ADD?

[provenance61]

Our DS is 9 and has ADD (no hyperactivity, just difficulty with focus). He also has sensory issues, and so has OT exercises to help with sensory things such as difficulty w/background noise.

 

I saw on another post a mention of cardio exercise at the beginning of the day as being very helpful for ADD. Is this typical? We really don't know at this point what is sensory and how much is ADD; he also had an auditory processing eval and there are some differences there (difficulty with auditory memory). His ADHD-Inattentive was diagnosed just on a parent-teacher eval so far.

 

Last year when he was still in school they also noticed up days and down days in regard to focus (we are HSing now).

 

I was wondering how much exercise to try to incorporate into his daily routine and how much help we might expect. We aren't totally against meds but would like to explore other methods and accommodations first. (This is one reason we pulled him from school, they just weren't doing that--I guess they would have if we'd waited until he fell way behind.)

 

Any advice/suggestions would be much welcomed.

 

Amy

[wapiti]

You might look at Brain Gym. There are also youtube demonstrations of some of the exercises.

[Jennifer-72]

This is a great book about exercise and it's impact on brain development. http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/0316113506

 

For my ds, we find putting exercise in about the middle of our school day very helpful. I think you just have to play around with the timing and see what works best for your son.

[rafiki]

.

[Finnella]

I've read a great deal on the benefits of exercise for kids with ADHD. My experiences with my DS bare that out. He's 12 1/2 and his need for exercise has suddenly soared. I have to insist he go outside and exercise or he can't focus on his work.