United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Maia's injured arm is her dominant arm so she uses her non-dominant arm to write. She hates taking notes in school because it takes too much brain power to do that and cuts down on her "listening" time because her brain is working too hard getting the hand writing. She feels that if she just sits and listens, she "gets" the lesson much better and has great memory retention. Her grades are fabulous with this method - BUT teachers are giving her a hard time about it - wanting her to come up with another method because as she gets older, note taking is going to be a vital task.

Any ideas about this?

Fran does Maia have an IEP or 504? That makes accommodations much easier... if not you have to have super understanding teachers. Are the notes off an overhead where they could allow her extra time to copy? It does get easier with time. You learn what is most important to take note about. Could try a computer in class if teachers allow. I have better luck keeping up with notes when I type them.
Thats my best advice after 5 years of college.
Hugs,
Amy 25 years old ROBPI from MN

yes - Maia has accommodations and even so, they take off points if she doesn't take the notes -- it's as if they forget everything in her accommodations and I have to remind them every week....

the thing is that Maia's left diaphragm is weak and when she's not breathing well, her non-dominant arm has issues and it's extremely tiring to use when she's not oxygenated enough
also - when she's not sleeping well - her arm is way weaker
so it's not an issue of doing it more makes it easier

she's extremely proficient with her non-dominant arm with gross motor function - but fine motor is difficult and tiring
(she's a drummer and rightie does all the work

so I bought a Yamaha C24 powertrak voice (music) recorder that is very tiny and very fine.... she's going to tape any lectures and then we'll have dragon software transcribe it for her....and if the notes are more complex, then she'll be able to copy notes from a "note buddy" ---

the recorder just came in and now we have to play to get it working and for maia to feel comfortable with the new system - the teachers are not too happy being recorded but too bad - they don't have a choice

-fran