"You might think that a kid with ADHD is going to be a slow learner with abacus, but it's really not so"

I have a child that has learning difficulties. She was in first grade and she got good grades but when I had her tested to put her in a private school she got 1% on math. So I was pretty concerned about that. I decided that the very first thing is she needed some help. So I looked online and found the word "abacus" and had no idea what it was, but these people were talking about abacus and how good it was working for kids. So I started googling it and found Abacus Brain Gym and was enthusiastic to start the program. I decided I was going to learn it with my kids and I did. It worked really well for both my daughters Mikayla and Lauren. Lauren is a first grader and Mikayla is a second grader. They are doing really good with the abacus program, especially Mikayla who previously had some difficulties with her math because she was so far behind. We had her tested and it showed that she was ADHD and ADD. She has the ability to learn and there’s nothing wrong with her, but she just doesn’t focus all the time. The abacus program has helped both my daughters tremendously, but especially with Mikayla. It helps with her comprehension as she has to listen to the numbers and she has to pay attention. And also I’ve seen with my daughter that’s ADHD, that because she works with her right brain, I've seen that she learns the imaging (mental math by imagining the abacus) much faster than my other child. So you might think that a kid with ADHD is going to be a slow learner with abacus, but it's really not so. It’s as if because they use pictures to think with, that this is an easy program for them!

Mikayla was in second grade and she couldn’t do subtraction. She couldn’t understand it. You’d have to show her the stuff and then take it away, but you can’t sit with her in class and take the stuff away every time to show her. You'd have to find a way that she could do it on paper, but she couldn’t make the transition. It was very difficult. But now she can do it, and she can do it fast! Not only that, but she can do much more than is expected of her.

​My kids are busy kids and I know it’s the same for a lot of parents. If you’re considering the abacus program for your kids and you don’t have the time, you’ll just have to make the time. I think many times I’ve seen that we expect too little from our kids. That’s one thing I’ve learned from the abacus program, is that we need to expect a whole lot more from them. I think it’s a mindset that we need to come out of. We should expect more from them because we are actually doing them a disfavor not to expect more from them. There is much greater potential in our kids than what we believe or what we were made to believe by our parents or our educational system... and so we can reach for higher!

Zelda Botha

Mom | Former Teacher
United States