ADHD and the FierceFamily

Mel Levine seems like such a nice, empathic guy. The way he writes about the struggles that students have makes me wish I could go to him and have him solve the puzzle of all of my challenges. Maybe most importantly, I want Dr. Levine to explain those challenges to me in a way that makes me feel as empathic towards myself as he sounds towards his patients.

The Myth of Laziness is a book about different learning issues that can look like laziness. Chapter by chapter, Dr. Levine describes different students who appear to be lazy - a condition that he calls “output failure.” Clint, for example, is a boy who seems to have talents exclusively outside of the classroom. Dr. Levine describes the process of assessment, step by step, to figure out where the breakdown in “output” lies. Clint ends up having memory retrieval weaknesses, which result in spelling, punctuation, and writing being nearly impossible and highly aversive tasks for him. Each story is presented as a compassionate kind of detective story to find out what’s happening.

This book is definitely worthwhile for a professional who works with learning and attention disorders. Dr. Levine’s conceptualization of learning challenges is a different and important perspective to be aware of. But, if you’re a parent with ADHD, I’m not sure that you’ll make it all the way through this book - and it’s hard to just pick a few chapters to read, because the chapters are just based on different students’ stories.

If, on the other hand, you already know the concerns your child is having, and you want to really become an expert in the different ways learning and producing may be breaking down for your child, this could be a really good read. If you need to be your child’s advocate at school, and you want to learn the language, and the details to be able to fight for your child’s needs at school, this could be a really good book for you. Or, if you’re thinking a psychoeducational assessment might be necessary for your child, this book is a really good primer on what to expect.

But, if your situation isn’t like any of those, I think that the most realistic appraisal is that this is a really good book that is likely to live on your “I should really read this book someday” shelf, and may never make it further than that.

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