Many children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) and other learning disorders have trouble remembering what they hear. Parents and teachers find themselves repeating instructions to them. This is an exercise to address this problem through neuro-development. Repeat this exercise often and within 30 days you should notice an improvement with your child. Continue to do the exercise until mastery has been achieved.

Do not get frustrated if your child gets a little worse before she gets better. This is all part of the neuro-development process.

You have achieved mastery when the child is able to repeat back what you have said word for word with at least 80 percent accuracy of a paragraph from the child's reading text book at school (i.e., child's reading level). It is usually wise to repeat this exercise to mastery every year to insure that your child is able to understand and remember material at her/his grade level.

This game can be played anywhere. We recommend you play this game often (several times during the day as close to a daily basis as possible). It only takes a minute or two to play the game. The object is to increase the child's ability to remember information that they hear. It will increase their ability to remember what they hear, absorb and understand teacher's instructions. It should also help increase focus abilities in a classroom setting.

Materials Needed. In reality, no materials are needed. It is helpful to have some written sentences ready so that you can read them and check for accuracy.

Step by Step Instructions.

1. 1. Obtain a list of sentences that are increasingly long or increasingly more difficult. Make sure the words are within your child's vocabulary. The sentences can be part of the child's reader or any other age appropriate book.

2. 2. Read the sentence to your child and have him/her tell it back to you word for word by using their memory.

3. Check for accuracy.

4. If accuracy is less than 95%, read the sentence again.

5. Have them tell it back to you word for word.

6. Check for accuracy.

7. If accuracy is less than 95%, read the sentence again.

8. Continue Steps 5 and 6 repeatedly until at least 95% accuracy has been achieved.

9. If the above process did not take long or was too easy for the child, read a harder or longer sentence.

10. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 until 95% accuracy is achieved on the new sentence.

11. Quit after a few minutes and then do the game again starting with a sentence that is of medium difficulty for your child.

12. Continue to do this exercise until your child can listen to a paragraph from their classroom's reading text and remember at least 80% of what was said.

With time you should see improvements with your child being able to focus and remember what is being said to him.

Some sample sentences:

Learning to ride a bike can be fun, especially if the bicycle is the right size.

Sally's sister had four of her cavities filled by her dentist in a single day.

Don't forget to get eggs, ice cream, milk and bread at the grocery store on your way home.

Turn to page 135 of your history book, read the story and answer the odd numbered questions on page 141.

Roger's favorite place to eat is McDonalds Restaurant. He likes to order a Big Mac, large fries, and a strawberry shake.

Tyrrell has a pet Guinea Pig that is gray, brown and white. It has a favorite trick where it hides in cut up pieces of paper and shivers. It is funny to see a pile of paper move like that.

Roger went to the hardware store to pick up supplies. He needed to fix the air conditioner that was leaking water into the house. He knew the parts that he needed would be expensive so he brought along his credit card to pay for it.

Science can be a lot of fun, especially chemistry. It can be fun mixing chemicals together to get a reaction. However, it can be dangerous too because some chemicals that are combined can be dangerous. Some of the fumes can even be toxic. So be careful learning about science.

Exercise: The Auditory Memory Exercise.

Time: Time: about 5 to 10 minutes at first, much less time as ability improves.

Recommended Frequency: several times a day, 5 or 6 days per week.

Pretest Assessment: participant scores 25% below the average of same age peers in remembering words that are read or spoken to them.

Mastery. Mastery is achieved when the participant can listen to a paragraph being read, from a grade level reader, one time and be able to repeat back the words of the paragraph within 80% accuracy.

Recommended Refresher Frequency: once a year at the beginning of a new school year.

For more information on neuro-development, please follow the links below:

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