Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Follow up report on child with learning difficulty

Dear friends,
I am please to report that the boy with learning disability, whom I have brought up for discussion a couple of weeks ago, is doing very well!

He does seem to have ADD/ADHD, and has a difficult time keeping still or stay focused. I have to constantly remind him that I'm talking to him, and he needs to pay attention. His personality is very sweet, and he has never shown me any rebellious attitude or never talked back. Often I have to make him repeat the same thing over and over, but he does it with pleasure. HIs understanding seems good and he is willing to learn to read the notes.
I have a synthesizer next to the piano, and a bugle on the top of the piano. If he behaves well and practices well, he is allowed to play with them after the lesson. He looks forward to it!

HIs mother told me yesterday that his IQ test came back and it was 65. But she said she knew better than that. The boy is much more intelligent!
Anyhow, I think we will do just fine, and he will probably go far. Thank you all, for your encouragement and advice!

On the other hand, I continue to have problems with the girl with rhythm problem. She doesn't like to be corrected, which is a bigger problem than the rhythm issue itself. She doesn't like to be made to play the samething twice either. She also shies away from the games that I created for her, because she can't do it easily (but it is very very simple and easy!). Her hand-eye, mouth-eye coordination is at the level of 3 years old. She wants to be treated as 10, but her coordination can't keep up with it. I'm still racking my brain to come up with something that would help her.

Anyhow, at least I am seeing very positive signs in the boy, which I am delighted to let you all know!

Thanks for the follow-up, Crystal. It's a shame about that girl. Just be persistent, enthusiastic, and make as many jokes as possible when you ask her to play something again or try something new. get her mind off the negative response as quickly as possible. She will need a lot of patience, I think, but eventually you'll have a breakthrough if you are persistent with showing how much fun *you* are having teaching her. You may have to go over the top and be silly, so don't hold back. Do your best for the time being to not "correct" her, and get her to think of mistakes as "juicy" (taken from Westney's "the Perfect Wrong Note", I highly recommend it). Also, do improvisation things with her too. Make it so that she can't possibly sound bad (playing on all black keys or something), or better yet, make "sounding bad" the goal! Keep us posted on her progress!

Talk about coincidence....
Last night I wanted to rescue the old topic about your new student just to know how both of you were doing.

I'm happy to see that the boy is moving forward and that your relationship teacher/student is working that good. Congratulations!

Please keep us informed, this kind of reports are always interesting and very very encouraging!

Thinking about that IQ test he took...often those tests are only good for certain kinds of students. There are many different intelligences, and the IQ only test one or two of them. Not only that, but the format for those tests work against a child with AD/HD, so I would completely disregard it. At 65, your student would be considered mentally retarded, and that is obviously not the case!