ADHD and Learning Therapy
Clinical learning therapy, ADHD support, and twice-exceptional work for children, adolescents, and adults. In German and English.
Attention is a clinical territory in 2026 in a way it was not twenty years ago. The capacity to sustain focus, to think through a problem, to read and retain, to translate intention into completed work: these abilities are under sustained pressure across age groups. For some, the difficulty has been present since childhood. For others, it has emerged in adulthood, sometimes alongside professional demands, sometimes alongside hormonal changes, sometimes without obvious cause. Many adults are recognizing in themselves the patterns they have seen in their own children.
In Europe, between five and eight percent of children have a reading and spelling disorder, three to seven percent have dyscalculia, and four to seven percent have ADHD. Research from LMU Munich shows that 57 percent of children with a mathematics disorder also have dyslexia, and approximately 30 percent of children with ADHD also meet criteria for a learning disorder. Profiles where strengths and learning difficulties coexist are described in international research as Twice-Exceptional, or 2e.
In adulthood, attention difficulties show up in different, less quantifiable ways. You procrastinate. Your desk is cluttered. You cannot read a book straight through anymore. Your cognitive battery is simply drained when you get home from work. Sometimes you cannot find the right word. You forget your PIN code. Hormonal shifts at puberty, after pregnancy, and in midlife affect attention significantly. These changes are often dismissed. They are real, and they are treatable.
Diagnosis answers what is happening. It does not answer what to do next.
For many years I have worked in two parallel roles: as a clinical practitioner in private practice and as a teacher across multiple educational contexts. I have taught privately, in adult continuing education, with young children, and currently in a German Gymnasium. The subjects have included German, English, Mathematics, Art, Ethics, Reading, and Yoga. What I see in these classrooms flows back into the therapeutic work, and the other direction as well.
For international families in the Munich area, this practice offers something specific. Structured clinical learning therapy meeting both German BVL standards and the Orton-Gillingham-based structured literacy approaches used internationally. Native English delivery alongside German. Working knowledge of the German school system from inside, including assessment procedures, accommodations, and the transition points where international families most often encounter difficulty. And the integration of structured clinical learning therapy with mind-body, breath, and movement-based work, which is rare in either German or Anglophone practice.
For families who have moved across countries, this matters. A child evaluated in three different educational systems may have three different sets of recommendations. The question is not which system was right. The question is what to do now, for this child, in the school she is currently attending.
This is a particular area of focus. English-German bilingual children are the most common configuration in the Munich international school catchment, and they present a clinical picture that is widely misread. I have also raised three bilingual children myself, which informs this work in ways formal training alone does not.
Standard bilingual development includes a quiet period in the second language, slower vocabulary growth in either language tested in isolation, and asymmetric academic performance across languages. None of this is pathological. Most bilingual children resolve these patterns over time with adequate exposure and instruction.
But for some bilingual children, what looks like a developmental delay or a need for “more exposure” is actually a learning difference that manifests differently in each language. Dyslexia in German, with its transparent orthography, often appears as slow but accurate reading. The same dyslexia in English, with its deep orthography and irregular spellings, appears as wide accuracy errors and significant spelling difficulty. A child may be evaluated as having no LRS in German and significant LRS in English, when the underlying phonological processing pattern is the same.
The work in this area combines clinical assessment that distinguishes bilingual variation from learning differences, structured literacy work in whichever language is academically primary, parallel support in the second language where indicated, and family consultation about home and school language balance during the work. For children at international schools whose academic language is English, the structured work is delivered in native English with English-language materials and Orton-Gillingham-based methodology. For children at German schools whose academic language is German, the work follows BVL standards. Most often it is both, integrated as one therapy.
For dyslexia, the work draws on Sally Shaywitz’s clinical framework and the International Dyslexia Association standards: phonological awareness, secure letter-sound correspondence, orthographic memory, and reading fluency. Methods include Orton-Gillingham-based structured literacy, multisensory approaches validated in decades of peer-reviewed research, and reading material chosen for genuine engagement rather than grade level.
For dyscalculia, the work begins with number sense and quantity concept, then place value, operations, and the automation of basic facts. The curriculum draws on Brian Butterworth’s research lineage and uses concrete-to-representational-to-abstract progression.
Breath work, mindfulness-based exercises, and targeted movement sequences are integrated throughout. A child who is internally tense cannot read well or practice with focus. Stress regulation is a precondition for cognitive work in learning therapy, not a side topic.
What changes: more independence in reading, less frustration at homework, more trust in the child’s own learning capacity.
Modern clinical understanding of ADHD, drawing on Russell Barkley’s executive function framework, treats it less as a deficit of attention than as a difficulty in reliably executing existing capabilities. The knowledge is there. Initiation, planning, prioritization, time perception, persistence, working memory, and self-regulation cannot be retrieved on demand.
The question of whether medication is part of the path is one you address with your child’s psychiatrist. I support you in that decision but do not make it for you. Behavioral parent-child therapy is established in international clinical guidelines as an evidence-based component of multimodal ADHD treatment. With or without medication, the work supports the functions a child with ADHD most needs.
The clinical work integrates attention training, self-instruction methods, working memory and retrieval strategies, behaviorally-oriented parent-child interaction, and movement-based therapy. Movement is established as a non-pharmacological component of modern ADHD treatment, drawing on John Ratey’s foundational research. Mindfulness elements support self-awareness and emotional regulation. The result is therapy in which more is practiced than discussed.
About thirty percent of ADHD diagnosed in childhood remains clinically significant in adulthood. Many adults have built considerable professional success while continuing to struggle with planning, prioritization, time management, and emotional regulation. Women are often recognized late, because their ADHD in childhood appeared as inner restlessness and chronic overwhelm rather than hyperactivity. The work with adults integrates behavioral methods and accountability work with clinical mind-body therapy, stress regulation, sleep work, and cognitive strategies from learning therapy.
What changes: less conflict at home, a child who can start a task without ten reminders, an assignment carried to completion. For adults: less of the feeling of working against your own brain, more clarity, more reliability in what actually matters.
About thirty percent of ADHD diagnosed in childhood remains clinically significant in adulthood. Many adults have built considerable professional success while continuing to struggle with planning, prioritization, time management, and emotional regulation. ADHD is often recognized in adulthood when a parent’s own child is diagnosed, or when the demands of professional advancement, parenting, or leadership exceed the strategies that worked before.
Women are often recognized late. Their ADHD in childhood appeared as inner restlessness and chronic overwhelm rather than hyperactivity. The intersection of ADHD, perimenopause, and disrupted sleep is a particular clinical territory; many professional women in their forties and fifties experience this as a crisis of competence that is actually a treatable clinical picture.
The work with adults integrates behavioral methods and accountability work with clinical mind-body therapy, stress regulation, sleep work, and cognitive strategies from learning therapy. The clinical focus is effectiveness, clarity, focus, and organization. The capacity to function reliably under time pressure, achievement pressure, and professional demand.
What changes: less of the feeling of working against your own brain, more clarity about your own attention, more reliability in what actually matters.
A focus of this practice is work with children, adolescents, and adults whose profile cannot be explained by a single diagnosis. International research describes these profiles as Twice-Exceptional or 2e: people with significant strengths alongside learning, attention, or sensory differences.
These children are easily misunderstood. Their strengths mask their difficulties, or their difficulties mask their strengths. Asynchronous development is characteristic: cognitive abilities run years ahead of age, while emotional regulation and executive functions often run behind. The gifted child can grasp complex ideas while failing to organize her school bag. She knows she is capable of more and cannot explain why she cannot do it.
The work addresses a dimension that is rarely included in traditional learning therapy: the integration of critical and creative thinking with body-based self-awareness. The ability to shift between focused detail and broader perspective, what research calls interoception, is a particular resource for gifted children whose thinking is often fast and intense and difficult to steer.
Neurodivergent children and adults frequently describe a sense of being separated from their own body. Movement, breath work, and mind-body methods help them return to the body and remain present. In 2e work these are not supplementary elements. They are often the actual foundation on which structured learning therapy, ADHD work, and giftedness support can become effective.
The therapeutic task is not to adapt the child until she functions like everyone else. It is to recognize and develop the strengths, address the difficulties clinically, and find a way for both to be held together.
Parents of children with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, or a 2e profile carry significant organizational and emotional load over years. They are the most important resource in the treatment and often the only people who see the whole picture. In fact, Behavorial Parent Training is recommended as a first-line treatment for children with ADHD.
What parents find in this work is a place where things can be said honestly, without the filter that school, family, or other parents require. An experienced clinician who knows the child, understands the clinical picture, knows the German school system from inside, and stands on the side of the family can help parents proactively structure environments to support reinforcement, communication, boundaries and resilience.
For international families in particular, the parent work often involves navigating between educational systems, evaluating recommendations from different countries, and clarifying what is actually needed in the current school context.
What changes for parents: less exhaustion, less guilt, more clarity. The security of not being alone in this work.
Consistent, caring therapeutic support can tip the scales in your direction. I work within therapy guideline in session blocks, giving both of us the right mix of individualization and accountability. The goal of an initial consultation is to decide on the framework together.